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ADTRAN (News - Alert) has introduced its Mosaic Cloud Platform, a control and orchestration solution for the company’s Software Defined Access architecture.

Mosaic Cloud Platform automates control and network management processes to reduce human resource requirements and enable customers to self-provision services.

“The Mosaic Cloud Platform’s open microservices architecture enables our customers to better align network operations and IT development teams while operating their networks at web scale, streamlining service innovation and capturing additional subscriber mindshare and revenue,” said Robert Conger, associate vice president, cloud, and portfolio strategy at ADTRAN. “ADTRAN Mosaic also enables our service provider customers to leverage the vast open source market to reduce service disruption and deploy new applications while maintaining a high quality of service.”

As you may know, everybody and their brother have been talking about SDN orchestration recently. Orchestration is essentially another word for network management, but within the SDN conversation it is supposed to work in “open,” multi-vendor environments. That speaks to a key goal of service providers in moving to software-centric networks: avoiding vendor lock in.

Calix (News - Alert) Inc., which like ADTRAN is a provider of access network solutions, also provides an SDN orchestration solution. The company’s solution is called AXOS, or Access eXtensible Operating System. This Linux-based offering was unveiled by Calix back in October of last year.

"For over a decade now, Calix has been in pursuit of a unified access infrastructure that would seamlessly connect the device-enabled subscriber to the applications and content in the cloud," said Michel Langlois, senior vice president of systems products at Calix, when announcing AXOS last year. "With AXOS, we now have a single software platform that places the communication service provider in the unique position to distribute services and intelligence across the entire access network with a distributed architecture. Thus, each service provider armed with the AXOS platform can choose between a wide spectrum of system form factors and merchant silicon capabilities, a key advantage and critical success factor in building service velocity and creating competitive advantage."

While a wide array of communications equipment and software suppliers now offer orchestration solutions, a recent survey by IHS (News - Alert) Markit indicates that Cisco/Tail-f, Nokia, and Ciena are perceived as the three leaders in this space. Ciena Blue Planet delivers carrier-grade NFV orchestration capabilities for instantiating, managing, and chaining virtual network functions. Cisco (News - Alert) in 2014 announced plans to buy Tail-f Systems. The company now calls its offering on this front the “Cisco Evolved Services Platform Orchestration Solution,” which is being used by Japanese tech giant Softbank (News - Alert) to support its White Cloud SmartVPN services. Nokia’s Nuage Networks Virtualized Services Platform virtualizes and automates any data center network infrastructure so network operators can instantaneously deliver cloud applications to thousands of tenants in a policy-driven manner.