Spanish service provider Telefónica and vendor partner Huawei Technologies are claiming an SDN industry first after a recent field trial in Peru that included commercial network traffic.
Telefónica and Huawei Technologies Co. Ltd. said the trial used the vendor's SDN IP+Optical solution to provision commercial users on the network in Peru.
Going forward, Telefónica SA (NYSE: TEF) and Huawei said they would continue to leverage the IP+Optical platform, which includes ROADM, router hardware, OTN switch and SDN controller, for large-scale commercial use cases.
The field trial also served to verify the commercial ability of Huawei’s SDN solution in the WAN/backbone domain, according to the two companies.
By using SDN, Telefónica is rebuilding its network architecture in order to quickly develop and deploy new services to its customers. The trial with Huawei moved Telefónica farther down the path towards a programmable transport architecture. (See Telefónica Steps Closer to Transport SDN.)
Telefónica and Huawei have been working towards the live trial ever since they announced the completion of lab tests in March 2014 and field trials in March of last year. (See Telefónica Tests Optical/IP SDN With Huawei.)
The transformation to programmable transport networks is currently underway with several large service providers. In addition to service agility, Telefónica and Huawei say the move will lead to a reduction in opex costs. (See Vendors Vie for Programmable Transport Traction.)
— Mike Robuck, editor, Telco Transformation