Alcatel-Lucent targets telcos with CloudBand launch
Miya Knights, November 18, 2011 News
Tailors IT networking software and assets to cloud-enable telecommunications firms
Alcatel-Lucent has debuted its ‘carrier cloud’ offering, aiming to position itself with tailored tools and hosted infrastructure services designed for communications service providers.
The new CloudBand offering is designed to enable telcos to capitalise on cloud computing benefits with their own networks and business operations and create a new range of high-performance cloud services for enterprises and consumers.
The telco provider said CloudBand was part of its cloud initiative to port its own platforms and applications to a cloud-based architecture. It said the CloudBand components would allow telcos to use their distributed, wide area network (WAN) infrastructures to control and provision “business-class” cloud services.
Adolfo Hernandez, Alcatel-Lucent software, services and solutions group president, said: “From our research we know that performance is the highest concern of IT decision makers. We also know that they believe communications service providers are in the best position to deliver the quality and security they expect, making them the cloud provider of choice for the enterprise world.”
CloudBand is made up of two main components: the CloudBand Management System, which includes a number of Service Provider Information Technology (SPIT) elements for orchestrating and optimising services between the communications network and the cloud, including provisioning and billing; and the CloudBand Node, which provides the computing, storage and networking hardware and associated software for hosted cloud services.
It features algorithms developed by Bell Labs, which orchestrate the network, computing and data storage elements distributed throughout the network, eliminating the for dedicated hardware platforms for each individual service.
Alcatel-Lucent suggested service providers could ‘virtualise’ communication services, such as SMS or video, by converting them into software run in the cloud. This offers pay-as-you-go price elasticity for reduced costs and a sandbox environment for quickly developing new services.
The company added that CloudBand would provide secure, reliable, high-performance communications networks with lower latency, better control of bandwidth and the ability to provide guaranteed quality of service levels, and that it will be available for deployment in the first half of 2012.
It is working with a number of technology partners on its cloud development initiative, but most notably HP, which has its own telco channel ambitions. And the announcement follows Cisco revealing its carrier cloud play in September.
Camille Mendler, Informa telecommunications analyst, commented: “Service providers’ cloud investments have already exceeded $11 billion in 2011, but financial rewards will only come if their computing and network assets are tightly integrated.
“Orchestration platforms like Alcatel-Lucent's CloudBand support efficient consumption and control of diverse digital resources. Better control means better performance – and that's absolutely critical to differentiate and win customers.”
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