ECI, a global provider of Elastic Network solutions for service providers, critical infrastructures and data centre operators, began shipping a new line of “Mercury” uCPE (universal customer premises equipment) — the first member of a new family of products enabling virtualization across CPE and the service provider’s PoP.
The Mercury uCPE delivers on-demand virtualized business services by streamlining multiple customer premises networking functions into a single software-configurable appliance. Network functions can then be delivered virtually (VNFs) via centralized management and orchestration (MANO).
ECI said it developed its solution with the goal of reducing operational complexities and lowering both CapEx and OpEx for service providers. ECI’s Mercury uCPE supports self-installation. Users are able to control the service directly via a self-service portal. Service providers can allow their business customers to select and combine best-of-breed VNFs from a library of ECI or certified third-party VNFs, supporting internet access, VPN services, voice services, cyber security (such as universal threat management), WAN optimization, LAN monitoring, storage services, etc.
- In July, ECI announced the launch of its Hybrid Virtualization Platform, designed to support multiple NFV-based use cases to help communication service providers simplify operations, reduce opex and enhance SLAs. By supporting delay-sensitive services and enabling improved security and termination of flows at the network edge, the new ECI platform is designed to support a variety of applications including modernised business services, as well as future Internet of Things (IoT) and 5G services. The platform features ECI’s vE-CPE family, which is set to provide virtualisation across customer premises (uCPE) and service provider Edge PoP (MEC). The Hybrid Virtualization Platform comprises the Mercury NFVI platform, open source NFV management and orchestration (MANO), which runs ECI’s carrier-grade PaaS system, and a suite of virtualised network functions (VNFs) that includes edge routing, session border control, WAN optimisation, LAN monitoring and caching functions.
