Alcatel-Lucent details its software defined networking strategy with the launch of Nuage Networks

Nuage Networks, an ‘internal start up’ established by Alcatel-Lucent, has outlined its software defined networking (SDN) strategy via its Virtualised Services Platform (VSP). The company announced an open software-based solution to address the key datacentre network constraints that limit cloud services adoption.  The VSP will allow healthcare, banking, utilities and other enterprise market segments, as well as webscale companies – large Internet-based companies – and telecom service providers, to scale their cloud offers and provide instant, secure connectivity to multiple customers.

Trials of the Nuage Networks VSP begin in April in Europe and North America. Trial customers include UK cloud service provider Exponential-e, French telco SFR, Canadian telco Telus and leading US healthcare provider, University of Pittsburgh Medical Centre (UPMC). Worldwide commercial availability is planned for mid-2013.

Alcatel-Lucent’s SDN strategy and the Nuage Networks branded portfolio builds on the cloud orchestration the company already provides with its CloudBand Management System.

Consumers and business users are driving demand for cloud computing and storage. Current datacentres are well equipped from an IT perspective as datacentre operators can add or change virtual servers and storage almost instantly to meet customer demands.

However, the network is not keeping up – it has high capacity, but it is not flexible enough to make use of that capacity, according to Nuage Networks. Network provisioning still requires detailed technical planning, manual configuration and complex systems and processes to connect customers to compute and storage resources. SDN helps solve this problem and IDC forecasts the worldwide SDN market will grow from U$360 million in 2013 to US$3.7 billion by 2016.