Ooredoo Kuwait teams up with VMware

VMware has announced that Ooredoo Kuwait has successfully deployed both Network Functions Virtualisation (NFV) and IT applications on a single, unified cloud based on the VMware vCloud for NFV platform.

Ooredoo’s UNIFY initiative is aimed at taking advantage of a software-defined data center architecture, and disruptive technologies such as network functions virtualisation and software-defined networking. Ooredoo Kuwait is adopting a platform-first approach to deploying its first service based on virtualized network functions (VNFs) and commodity off the shelf (COTS) hardware as part of an internal multi-year transformation programme.

VMware’s professional services team partnered with Ooredoo Kuwait and their VNF vendor Huawei to design and deploy the VMware vCloud for NFV platform and virtual network functions into a test environment in less than three months. VMware vCloud for NFV supported the transfer of the virtualised Core IMS (IP Multimedia Subsystem) from test environment to Ooredoo’s production IT environment, and enabled Ooredoo to conduct its first Voice-over-LTE (VoLTE) call. The deployment of Ooredoo Kuwait’s new Core NFV was fully automated, leveraging VMware vCloud Director and the VMware NSX network virtualisation platform. The service is expected to go live in its production service network later this year.

“Reliability and availability were key factors in our decision to work with VMware. The production-proven VMware technology and our previous experience with the high levels of technical support offered by VMware professional services gave us the confidence to move to a unified cloud platform,” said Mijbil Al-Ayoub, Director, Corporate Comms, Ooredoo Kuwait. “The speed at which we have been able to trial our unified cloud and onboard the VoLTE service functions into our IT network has exceeded our expectations. We did a joint R&D project that took only two months to complete, and we finalized the development of our vIMS product that can be deployed in a production, commodity infrastructure, automatically in only 3.5 hours.”