Huawei and China Mobile jointly demonstrated a virtualized Evolved Packet Core (vEPC) and virtual IMS this week at Mobile World Congress (MWC) in Barcelona. Both solutions are a part of Huawei’s CloudEdge solution, which has four parts:
- Mobile: Focused on continued LTE build outs, virtual EPC and simplification of Gi-LAN by introducing service chaining
- Service: The introduction of MANO (Management and Orchestration)in NFV related to operation management, automation and network services orchestration. MANO avoids siloed point deployment of NFV, including integration and migration with existing backend OSS/BSS.
- IP: Huawei’s SDN controller for IP RAN backhaul is designed to ease OPEX complexity through automation and simplified management of complex IP backhaul. IP and optical devices under the SDN controller improve traffic engineering and optimization for overall cost reduction and backhaul improvement
- Home: Virtualized set-up box and virtual EPC to address the home network environment.
Huawei also noted that it is currently conducting more than 20 PoC (proof of concept) CloudEdge projects and is in trials with leading operators around the world, with a planned first commercial product in the third quarter of 2014.