AT&T’s ECOMP platform being tested by Orange

AT&T’s Enhanced Control, Orchestration, Management and Policy (ECOMP) virtualization platform is being tested by Orange, reflecting the success of the telco’s move to release the technology as open source software to the broader telecom and communications industry.

In conjunction with the Linux foundation, AT&T is committed to releasing ECOMP as open source software and Orange is the first service provider to join AT&T’s ECOMP effort.

Alain Maloberti, SVP of Orange Labs Network, said in a release that the service provider plans “to start experiments with ECOMP firstly in a lab environment, to be followed by a field trial as part of our On-Demand Networks program.”

While the ECOMP pact is new, AT&T and Orange are well versed about their virtualization processes. In July, the two service providers reached an agreement to collaborate on new open source activities related to SDN and NFV, aiming at developing new standards carriers can follow as they implement virtualization in their networks.

Through that agreement, AT&T and Orange are set on achieving three goals -- simplifying technological integration, increasing operational efficiency and reducing costs. At that time, the two service providers said that they will identify forums for industry standardization discussions to drive standardization efforts forward.

Roman Pacewicz, SVP of offer management and service integration at AT&T Business Solutions, told FierceTelecom in a previous interview that the alliance with Orange is about influencing the industry around standardizing virtual technology.

"We don't think we're moving fast enough as an industry and we want to put more adrenaline in it,” Pacewicz said.

With the advent of ECOMP, service providers quickly add features and drive down operations costs. It also gives service providers and businesses more control of their network services, and enables developers to create new services.

ECOMP is an element of AT&T's wider goal of virtualizing 75 percent of its network by 2020. The company made progress toward that goal last year by virtualizing 5.7 percent of its network, and this year the company hopes to migrate 30 percent of its applications into a private cloud by the end of 2016.

For more:
- see the release

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AT&T open sources ECOMP to Linux Foundation, hopes to make it industry's standard for SDN