Cisco Expands Virtualization Offerings for Service Providers

Cisco has announced the expansion of its virtualization offerings for service providers with the introduction of the Cisco® Evolved Services Platform (ESP), a key element of the company’s Cisco Open Network Environment (ONE) strategy, which works in conjunction with the infrastructure layer of the architecture.

Also highlighted today are two Cisco virtual service modules, in the areas of video, and mobility, along with four new and simplified ways for service providers to acquire and deploy them.

Leading service providers around the globe are transforming their networks with various aspects of the Cisco ESP to optimize network value, increase business agility and enable greater operational efficiency.

With a rapidly increasing number of people, devices, machines and sensors coming online across the Internet of Everything (IoE), service providers require new capabilities to lead in the delivery of value-added, cloud-based services and applications.

Open, elastic and extensible, the Cisco ESP is result of several years of engineering development oriented around the three main tenets of the Cisco service provider virtualization strategy including the network is increasingly becoming virtualized and virtualization is increasingly becoming networked; Virtualization needs to work as an integrated extension of the physical infrastructure and Virtualization shouldn’t be limited to a function but rather placed throughout the whole architecture.

The Cisco ESP works with the Cisco Evolved Programmable Network (EPN) and is designed to enable service providers to accelerate the delivery of innovative new services, increase revenues by offering consistent and differentiated experiences, and decrease operational expenses by optimizing existing network infrastructures.

“Service providers success is dependent on providing a consistent experience, agility to roll out new services and the ease at which these services can be ordered, automated, managed and delivered,” said Mr. Dare Ogunlade, general manager Cisco, Nigeria, Ghana, Liberia and Sierra-Leone.

“Service providers globally, he added, "view virtualization not just to reduce costs but to have it work with their infrastructure to provide even greater value by means of increased agility and elasticity. As the industry leader in networking, we are not only committed to but executing on our strategy to enable our customers through this transition.