Cloud telecom infrastructure with Etisalat

UAE Telecoms giant Etisalat has announced its plans to work with an association of global tech leaders to introduce a new vendor platform that will aim to provide cloud telecom infrastructure and host developing futuristic technologies and services.

The creation of this respected group is aligned with the company’s corporate-wide programme launched to ‘cloudify the network’-dubbed ‘Sahaab. Sahaab is an Arabic word that means cloud. The programme will focus on deploying the right criteria of hardware-centric telecom services and software-centric cloud services.

The group itself consists of NEC as the prime overall integrator, Netcracker, Redhat, Juniper and Dell who will all collaborate with Etisalat to install and roll out the second generation of NFV (Network Function Virtualisation)/ SDN (Software Defined Networking). These two technologies are closely related and commonly associated with the enablement of smart cities, Internet of Things (IoT) and the upcoming 5G future.

The infrastructure will be built against industry leading architecture developed by the European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI). The most recent technologies will then be set up to provide the highest levels of performance, agility, elasticity, and well-organized and efficient operations. The technologies include Network Function Virtualization Orchestrator (NFVO) from Netcracker, Software Defined Networking (SDN) controller from Juniper-Contrail, Virtual Infrastructure Manager (VIM) from RedHat-Openstack, and a collection of automation and operations tools like Ansible, Zappix, git-lab, ELK, and Bacula.

Esmaeel Hammadi, Senior Vice President, Network Development, Etisalat said:

“Today’s announcement is of strategic importance as this platform will be a pillar for Etisalat’s long term strategy of driving digital technologies to empower our services and build the infrastructure to incorporate emerging technologies. As we transition into the digital future, it is essential to invest and implement the state-of-art methodologies in cloud computing by engaging with global leaders. This will ensure services on our network are agile and provide the best performance for major projects like Expo 2020, World Government Summit, AFC Asia Cup among others.”