December 15, 2021

Making Network Disaggregation a Reality

It’s hard to believe that it’s been close to two years since the world went upside down thanks to COVID-19. 2021 was the year we became more and more accustomed to dealing with the virus and its variants. And while we would love to have the virus disappear, at the end of the day, life goes on, and this is particularly true for networks, considering how much this period has proven that networks are critical for our day-to-day lives.

Making Network Disaggregation a Reality

Taking a look back at this year, we saw how network disaggregation grew in acceptance and started to take shape, opening opportunities for wider growth in the year ahead.

Here are some of the top milestones we noted for disaggregation from this past year:

#10 Funding the Network Cloud Infrastructure of the Future

DriveNets raised $208M in a Series B funding round, bringing its valuation to more than $1billion. As stated in the press release, “the company will use the investment to continue to offer service providers and hyperscalers a radical new way to build their networks with higher capacity and scale at a much lower cost.”

#9 First to Support Broadcom J2C+ ASIC

When Broadcom announced its new 14.4Tb Jericho2c+ chip (which increases router capacity threefold vis-à-vis the previous Jericho2c), DriveNets Network Cloud was the first high-scale routing solution to run on the J2C+ ASIC.

As Ram Velaga, senior vice president and general manager, Core Switching Group, at Broadcom explained, “this second generation DDC system with DriveNets router NOS at 690Tb delivers 6x performance improvement over alternative architectures.”

#8 Founding the Open Grid Alliance and Aiming to Rearchitect the Internet

The Open Grid Alliance (OGA) was established this year to properly “rearchitect the Internet.”

  • Founding members include: VMware, Vapor IO, Deutsche Telekom, DriveNets, and others
  • Expanded to include 34 more organizations.
  • The motivation behind the Open Grid Alliance (OGA) is to create the Open Grid – a software-defined system that stretches across the globe to support multi-cloud services over an elastic infrastructure that is available when and where needed, on demand.

“We’ve never built something of this scale, and it will require bridging of disparate technologies with multiple levels of abstraction. This will only be possible with a deeper level of collaboration across wireless, cloud, and networking industries.” said Kaniz Mahdi, vice president of advanced technologies, VMware.

#7 Open Compute Project (OCP) Publishes Network Sustainability Model, Enabled by Cloud Architecture

The Open Compute Project (OCP) published DriveNets proposal ‘Topology and component description of DriveNets Network Cloud as a sustainable solution for multipurpose networking.’

  • Based on the elastic scalability of the distributed disaggregated chassis (DDC) router, which supports scaling of network capacity by adding white boxes to an existing network infrastructure cluster
  • Highlights how cloud-native networks enhance sustainability and extend their lifespan with open standard hardware elements supporting multiple software-based networks.

#6 Analysts Recognize Value of Disaggregated Networking

This year saw more enthusiasm coming from leading industry analysts for moving to disaggregated network architectures:

  • Heavy Reading – “Disaggregation is opening the IP market to new supplier choices that have not existed in decades, giving operators new power in the buyer-seller relationship. (…) Just 7% of operators report they are fully satisfied with their existing suppliers.”
  • STL Partners – “A cloud-like architecture has been proven to support [the growing demand for capacity and throughput] and enable new revenue streams from expanded service offerings and the agility to address these. Hyperscale providers serve as the model.”
  • 650 Group – “Disaggregated Routing leverages the hyperscaler supply chain of smaller and easier to build fixed platforms. It can step up and address the challenges of availability today and provide a cleaner and better model as we advance.”
  • ACG Research – “Only by rearchitecting the network as a cloud can the CSPs reap the benefit of resource pooling, achieve scalability like hyperscalers, and become service agile, which ultimately translates to capex and opex savings.”
  • Analysys Mason – “CSPs should consider disaggregating their IP networks to achieve more open, cloud-like network architecture.”
  • IDC – “Successful deployments of disaggregated, cloud-native network architecture can provide greater agility, flexibility, operational efficiency, and continuous innovation in wired and wireless networks.”
  • Appledore Research – “The move from closed, custom, hardware-based networks to open, cloud native, software-based networks bring with it the opportunity for disaggregation. It provides an increasing ability to innovate new dynamic and flexible network services, rather than the typical static and fixed telco services of today.”

#5 Growing list of Top Carriers Involved in Disaggregated Networking

The targeted use cases for disaggregation of service provider networks expanded to include core routers, aggregation, peering, and broadband access at different scale:

 #4 Bloomberg: Virtualizing A $15 Billion Routing Market

Disaggregation got the attention from leading journalists at Bloomberg, with DriveNets appearing on several Bloomberg channels:

#3 Growing the Disaggregation Ecosystem

Wipro, one of the leading global information technology, consulting and business process services company in the telecom field, partnered with DriveNets to enable service providers to leverage the cloud for growth and realize operational efficiencies.

“The partnership with DriveNets allows both organizations to play to their strengths while unlocking new possibilities for CSPs. Using technology from Wipro and DriveNets, CSPs can leverage cutting-edge disaggregated networks that meet their current and future needs while catering to increasingly digitized business and consumer segments,” said Anurag Shrivastava, General Manager and Global Practice Head of Network Services, iDEAS, at Wipro Limited.

#2 Leading Lights Best Product: Another Validation for Building Networks Like Cloud

For the second year in a row, DriveNets is once again a winner of Light Reading’s Leading Lights Award, the telecom industry’s most prestigious awards program.

#1  LG U+ Moves Towards Cloud-native, Disaggregated Networking

Successful proof-of-concept process for DriveNets Network Cloud solution as a potential replacement for LG U+’s existing network core and backbone routing technology.

“At LG U+, we are looking forward to evolving our entire network infrastructure to the cloud, including base stations, wired networks, and core networks. DriveNets Network Cloud confirmed that we will be able to provide optimal service quality without interruption, even when traffic increases or other challenges occur, in a cloud-native environment,” said Lee Sang-Heon, LG U+ NW Advanced Development Manager.

2022: Here we come!

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