Service Providers Can Virtualize Business-Class Services

Alcatel-Lucent introduced "CloudBand" as the foundation for a new class of carrier cloud services that will enable communications service providers to bring the benefits of the cloud to their own networks and business operations, and put them in a position to offer a new range of high-performance cloud services to enterprises and consumers.

Some services are dependent on levels of quality and performance that the public cloud is not able to provide. CloudBand draws on the unique strengths of communications service providers to create business-class cloud services that are delivered using secure, reliable, high performance communications networks. This new level of service offers lower latency, better control of bandwidth and the ability to provide a guaranteed quality of service, all of which are necessary to meet the stringent performance demands of consumers and enterprises.

CloudBand is comprised of two distinct elements: the CloudBand Management System, which delivers orchestration and optimization of services between the communications network and the cloud; and the CloudBand Node, which provides the computing, storage and networking hardware and associated software to host a wide range of cloud services.

CloudBand will be available for deployment in the first half of 2012.

Using CloudBand, service providers can ‘virtualize’ many of the critical elements of their networks by converting them into software, which is run in the cloud and accessed on demand as needed to address shifts in customer usage patterns. Rather than having to install dedicated equipment for every communication service, such as SMS or video, service providers can instead draw from the carrier cloud to address demand.

CloudBand, which features advanced algorithms developed by Bell Labs, orchestrates the network, computing, and data storage elements distributed throughout the network. This approach results in the creation of a single, flexible service delivery and computing platform that can support a wide range of services, eliminating the need for dedicated hardware platforms for each individual service.