At Mobile World Congress Telefónica and HP today announced that the telecommunications company has selected HP as the technology provider and systems integrator of the Telefónica Virtualization Infrastructure (project UNICA). Telefónica will implement the end-to-end HP OpenNFV platform stack, including server, software, orchestration and networking technologies, carrier grade HP Helion OpenStack® technology, services and expertise.
UNICA: Transforming away from a proprietary siloed network infrastructure
The Telefónica UNICA initiative marks a paradigm shift in the way telco networks are designed and installed using existing virtualization technologies. UNICA is focused on extracting maximum benefits from network functions virtualization (NFV), software defined networking (SDN), and cloud technologies. It involves moving from proprietary “vertical” silos to an open, unified “horizontal” architecture, bringing in the future improved centralized management and orchestration (MANO) capabilities and shared hardware resources across services, dramatically reducing operating costs.
“For Telefonica, UNICA is just the first step for a wide and ambitious vision which results in the best experience for our customers. We are starting here with HP, not just a new way to deploy networks, even more, a new way to deploy services all based in cloud,” Said Enrique Blanco, Global CTO of Telefonica.
NFV will make it quicker and easier for Telefónica to introduce and replicate new services and upgrade the network – upgrades will be possible in hours, even minutes, instead of months since services are not being tied to physical appliances.
Telefónica plans to follow a three-phase approach to implementing UNICA:

1. Virtualize non-critical systems, such as AAA and IP Media Subsystem (IMS), deploying them as virtual network functions (VNFs)
2. Transform to NFV core networks like virtual Evolved Packet Core (vEPC) for LTE
3. Virtualize critical systems like Home Subscriber Server (HSS) and Home Location Register (HLR)

 
At the same time, Telefonica will use UNICA to deploy new cloud based services and to migrate current virtualized services, in an unprecedented transformation of internal management.
 
HP OpenNFV Platform: An end-to-end virtualization stack built around openness
The HP approach to NFV is built around adherence to openness and standards. A key benefit of this methodology is the ability to enable other telco ecosystem vendors to introduce in new innovations on top of the HP OpenNFV platform, including network equipment providers (NEPs), independent software vendors (ISVs), and systems integrators (SIs). This allows telecommunications providers to choose different components from the vendors that best meet their needs.
“Telefónica was one of the first to realize NFV’s potential to transform its network to meet growing customer demands and increasing competitive pressures,” said Saar Gillai, senior vice president, general manager, Network Functions Virtualization, HP. “Telefónica’s UNICA initiative and HP’s OpenNFV Platform – both launched just one year ago – represent real progress in making the transformation to NFV and together will serve as an important point of reference for the telecommunications industry.”
A key requirement for network transformation through NFV is the shift from expensive, proprietary appliances to open, standards-based hardware. The HP OpenNFV platform is fully compatible with industry standard servers, storage and networking offerings, enabling higher flexibility at a lower cost for deploying and running telecommunications services. The HP OpenNFV platform stack includes:

• HP Converged Infrastructure – Provides workload-optimized systems to run virtualized functions on the carrier network, including compute, storage and networking.
• HP Helion CloudSystem – A complete, integrated, and open solution for building and managing NFV cloud platforms – helps automate service lifecycle management for any cloud service, from infrastructure to application.
• HP NFV Director – Implements NFV orchestration functionality in the emerging model from European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI) critical to NFV operation.
• Carrier grade HP Helion OpenStack – A commercial distribution built on OpenStack® technology, providing an open, scalable, and highly available cloud platform that meets CSPs demanding reliability requirements.
• HP Distributed Cloud Networking (DCN) – An SDN virtualization solution that optimizes network resources, increasing agility and speeding time-to-market through dynamic, service-driven configuration..

HP Technology Communication and Media Solution experts in conjunction with Technology Services Consulting will help Telefónica prepare the current network infrastructure to adapt to the needs of the next generation services based on NFV and SDN technologies. HP Technology Services Consulting will work with Telefónica to establish the infrastructure designs to meet the performance and availability requirements of VNF, orchestration and carrier grade HP Helion OpenStack. In addition, HP will establish presence in Madrid to support Telefónica’s network transformation and define a common strategy.
Telefónica will demonstrate some services running over an end to end virtualized network including selected virtual network functions running on UNICA Execution Environment at Mobile World Congress 2015, March 2-5, Barcelona, in the Telefónica booth (Hall 3, Stand 3J20).
 
About Telefónica
Telefónica is one of the largest telecommunications companies in the world in terms of market capitalisation and number of customers. With its best in class mobile, fixed and broadband networks, and innovative portfolio of digital solutions, Telefónica is transforming itself into a ‘Digital Telco’, a company that will be even better placed to meet the needs of its customers and capture new revenue growth. The company has a significant presence in 21 countries and a customer base of more than 341 million accesses around the world. Telefónica has a strong presence in Spain, Europe and Latin America, where the company focuses an important part of its growth strategy.
 
About HP
HP creates new possibilities for technology to have a meaningful impact on people, businesses, governments and society.  With the broadest technology portfolio spanning printing, personal systems, software, services and IT infrastructure, HP delivers solutions for customers’ most complex challenges in every region of the world.  More information about HP (NYSE: HPQ) is available at http://www.hp.com.