Embracing virtualization to manage growth and de-risk infrastructure investment
It is anticipated that 5G networks will enable a massive growth in mobile services and bandwidth. The challenge to the mobile operator will be having a core network that can scale along with this growth, without having to overbuild in anticipation. This is one of the key drivers for implementing an SDN/NFV-based core network. By using commercial, off the shelf (COTS) hardware along with software defined functionality, growing the network capacity can be as easy as deploying additional servers and loading them with the right software.
Having a core that can quickly scale with demand allows carriers to build only what’s required, and being able to monitor the network and its services in real-time will be essential to triggering this growth and ensuring that service quality remains high.