Telefónica Deutschland selects Blue Planet for network automation

Telefónica Deutschland has chosen software from Blue Planet, a division of Ciena, to upgrade its network in Germany to support growing data traffic and bandwidth demand from users.

Telefónica Deutschland is preparing its transport network with open, software-defined network (SDN) orchestration and a partially disaggregated multi-vendor optical network architecture to transform network operations and improve the delivery of new services.

The companies said Blue Planet’s software will enable the service provider to lower its operating expenses (OpEx) while optimising its network to offer services such as 5G, video streaming and online gaming. The deployment is part of Telefónica’s iFusion programme, which is focused on using SDN to upgrade the transport network in Germany to improve the customer experience.

Network diversity

“Telefónica is moving away from legacy single-vendor platforms to a model combining best-of-breed solutions from multiple vendors, enabling us to maintain diversity in our network and avoid depending on one vendor,” said Cayetano Carbajo Martín, Global Director of Technology, Telefónica GCTIO. “In Germany, Blue Planet’s software executes our SDN programme to enable not only multi-vendor transport but also automation of our network.”

Blue Planet’s Multi-Domain Service Orchestration (MDSO) software will help Telefónica Deutschland to rapidly create, deploy and automate end-to-end service delivery across the new multi-vendor transport network. Open Rest Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) from MDSO simplify integration with other components of Telefónica Deutschland’s Operations Support System (OSS) to align the network with the needs of different applications. The upgraded network uses open standard models, including the transport application programming interface (T-API) and OpenConfig, with Blue Planet MDSO.

Rick Hamilton, Senior Vice President, Blue Planet, said: “Telefónica Deutschland is taking strategic steps to support its users’ demands for 5G, cloud services, artificial intelligence and more. Blue Planet’s intelligent automation software differentiates, disrupts and transforms Telefónica Deutschland’s network to adapt and deliver measurable business outcomes.”

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