VMware, which already has a deep presence with communications service providers and enterprise customers, is expanding its automation and security capabilities for telco, Edge and IoT applications.
With its recent acquisition of Uhana, VMware will deliver a real-time deep learning engine to optimize the quality of telco network experience. Uhana provides a predictive artificial intelligence engine that optimizes the mobile network subscriber experience. Uhana intelligent analytics will complement and enhance the service assurance capabilities from VMware Smart Assurance, as well as other network data collection products.
VMware also announced that its VeloCloud SD-WAN solution is now used by over 100 CSPs globally and is installed at over 150,000 customer sites.
VMware is continuing to invest in OpenStack-managed virtualized telco clouds with a focus on making them operationally deployable, container capable and multi-cloud ready. Specifically, VMware’s VIO 6.0 will provide communication service providers with a common platform that has consistent policies in a multi-cloud environment. The latest release of VMware Smart Assurance with VMware Integrated OpenStack provides assurance capabilities that will deliver service impact and root-cause analysis with visibility across physical and virtual OpenStack networks, as well as multi-cloud networks. With VMware Smart Assurance and VIO 6.0, communication service providers will gain an automated approach to operational intelligence to reduce service impact and operational expenses.
VMware has also introduced a new Telco Edge Reference Architecture that provides design principles for developing and deploying an Edge-based cloud network based on VMware vCloud NFV infrastructure and VMware Integrated OpenStack. Leveraging VMware Integrated OpenStack, communication service providers can manage multiple Edge sites from a single centralized data center, thereby reducing overall footprint at the Edge while optimizing network performance.
“5G networks will deliver unprecedented levels of speed and ultra-low latency, resulting in new use cases for Telco and Edge Clouds limited only by imagination. CSPs and enterprises will benefit from the multi-cloud interoperability, uniformity in architecture and consistency in policies across private, public, telco and Edge clouds provided by VMware,” said Shekar Ayyar, executive vice president and general manager, Telco and Edge Cloud, VMware. “Furthermore, with the addition of AI-based learning capabilities from our Uhana acquisition, telco and Edge clouds will become significantly smarter in their capability to provide better service and remediate and correct faults quicker.”
VMware to acquire UHANA for telco AI
VMware agreed to acquire Uhana, a start-up focused on deep learning and real-time AI in carrier networks and applications. Financial terms were not disclosed.
VMware said it intends to add Uhana’s technology to its own Telco Cloud and Edge Cloud portfolio.
Uhana, which is based in Palo Alto, California, is developing a highly-scalable, low-latency, real-time stream processing and AI platform, deployable in the operator’s private cloud or public cloud infrastructure. It includes a high-performance stream processing engine that ingests subscriber-level network telemetry from a variety of data sources: the radio access network, the core network and optionally even the over-the-top (OTT) application directly, and processes the telemetry to provide real-time, per-subscriber visibility. It also includes an AI engine that discovers and predicts anomalies in the network and/or application, prioritizes them by their estimated impact, infers their likely root causes and automatically recommends optimization strategies for the best subscriber experience.
In a blog posting, Uhana co-founder Sachin Katti writes: “After the deal closes, with the addition of Uhana’s technology to VMware’s Telco and Edge Cloud portfolio, Uhana will further support VMware’s ability to serve the telecom industry and deepen intelligence in the journey to 5G. Uhana’s technology will empower intelligence and analytics for the VMware Smart Assurance and VMware Smart Experience products.”
http://www.uhana.io/about
https://blogs.vmware.com/telco/vmware-to-add-uhana-to-telecommunications-portfolio-harnessing-the-power-of-ai-for-mobile-networks/
