The increasing use of cloud and the continuous demand for bandwidth have driven enterprises to seek more flexible and simpler WAN solutions, which means the conventional WAN architecture relying on MPLS to rout traffic data between branch offices and data center will be history, just a matter of time. However, enterprises are reluctant to replace existing hardware infrastructure overnight. Thus, Hybrid WAN and then SD-WAN have emerged.

Cable MSOs (multiple-system operators) are going to challenge telecom’s long market dominance in enterprise services, with the new power by SD-WAN (Software-defined WAN). Cable providers are benefited with the SDN technology enabling them to serve large, multi-site corporations. With SD-WAN, cable MSOs can leverage their existing coaxial connectors with Gigabit Internet speeds enabled by adopting DOCSIS 3.1 technology, thus they do not have to rely on fiber alone. In other words, SD-WAN allow cable services to offer more flexible and affordable services and connectivity for multi-site enterprises than the currently employed MPLS (Multiprotocol Label Switching) services to integrate all the cloud applications, such as VoIP, ADC and VPN, among distributed branches.

As pointed out by Gartner report in 2016, more than 30% of advanced cyber threats, such as DDoS, data breach, and ransomware, will aim at the most vulnerable edge networks of SME or remote business branches, where IT managements are more concerned with budget, service flexibility and manageability. To build up sustainable measures against latest emerging cyber threats, they need a flexible, on-demand, and software-defined security to achieve total zone defense for their networks. With the trends of NFV and vCPE network virtualization infrastructures, SMEs and branch offices shall employ x86 open compute vCPE platforms and SD-Security to simplify their edge security operations and deliver service agility while maintaining OPEX efficiency and elasticity.

Network Function Virtualization (NFV) is a new network architecture concept that uses IT virtualization technologies to decouple network functions, such as router, firewall, network address transition (NAT), and domain name service (DNS), from proprietary hardware appliances so that they can run as software on general purpose network platform. NFV aims to help telecom service providers obtain operation agility, OPEX efficiency and scale-on-demand network services.

Nowadays, no matter the average people or enterprises, or even governmental organizations, there is a rising dependence on digital multimedia for purposes including marketing, entertainment, campaigns and information. According to researches, the average of digital media consumption is rising approximately 20% or more (at the time of this writing). This indicates that we are consuming and supplying more and more digital media on social networking sites, content delivery networks, TV broadcasters and video-streaming platforms, and the volumes go up by exponentials. In fact, network convergence and multimedia streaming are becoming more compute-intensive than ever, and sometimes quality of service can be traded off. There is a need for High Efficiency Video Coding (HEVC) technology to enhance the serviceability.

Intel® ONP (Open Network Platform) is a reference architecture to encourage the wide adoptions of SDN (Software Defined Network) and NFV (Network Function Virtualization). This move by Intel clearly points out that the network industry is walking through a transition from hardware-based to a more software-focused ecosystem. With the rapid development of open-source and open-standard software solutions, owners of telecommunications, cloud computing and data centers are favoring more open technologies while saving costs on fixed equipment costs. To accelerate this transition, Intel layouts the picture of Intel ONP, which will readily integrate open software and hardware architecture to meet industrial and enterprise demands.

Cloud computing is becoming a critical function within the network core as operators strive to improve efficiency, deliver added value, and create new business opportunities. While these trends promise important benefits, they also present challenges. Telecom cloud services must blend data center and telecom capabilities, offering excellent performance, cost, energy, space, and manageability, along with carrier- grade reliability and security.

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