Tom Nolle of CIMI Corp wrote another thoughtful piece on NFV this week Is NaaS a Good Conceptual Framework for SDN and NFV? He introduces a concept termed Network as a Service (NaaS). You can refer to the cloud voice platform as Voice NaaS (as a prospect once did).
Tom writes “a ‘service’ is made up of a set of ‘functions’ that are in turn orchestrated into resource commitments.” Great description and it means NaaS is actually service-centric (vs network). Tom notes these two attributes:
- APIs not CLIs for service creation – the cloud voice platform does that; APIs are used to power the comprehensive management web portal or plug into existing back-office systems
- Abstraction of service from underlying technology – cloud voice platform allows service definition, account creation, and functions of managing the voice business to manage and commit resources on the platform; but it is a service first view.
Alianza takes the NaaS framework outlined in the article a step further and makes it truly a service—no CAPEX, all SaaS-based OPEX. It allows service providers to get out of the voice network building business and focus on growing their business. You could call it hosted NFV as it is a multi-tenant, all elastic core technology for service providers. But it’s also done with the business model transformation required for voice—a revenue source that has its margins compressed at both the top and bottom. See more in our blog “NFV is Necessary but Not Sufficient.”
And the cloud voice platform dramatically simplifies the management of voice as it’s provided from a single vendor, horizontally integrated, and provides APIs and intuitive and elegant web portals to manage everything from service creation to customer care. We abstract the voice service/subscriber management from the technology management. Functional elements aren’t managed; instead, services are created and accounts/subscribers are added and managed. We like to show how service providers can define a new service, sign up a subscriber and apply the service in minutes.
Check out this brief presentation that compares building a cloud (using NFV) vs using a cloud (NFV as in SaaS/NaaS). If you’re looking at NFV for your next-gen VoIP solution, look to Alianza’s Cloud Voice Platform. It takes the elastic and virtual technology evolution and applies a SaaS model and transforms the business model and management of VoIP. Let’s talk today!