OREANDA-NEWS. Nippon Telegraph and Telephone Corporation launched a collaborative study with Alcatel-Lucent Japan Ltd. and Fujitsu Limited to develop server architecture for core systems of telecom networks.

Telecom network functions that have typically been realized through hardware are gradually being realized through software, and this makes service applications more complex. However, the software development scale for service applications must be reduced for faster deployment of services. This project will promote the study of server architecture that enables faster development of service applications by merging NTT laboratories’ core technologies and the industry’s latest technologies on top of general-purpose hardware. Another objective of the project is to apply the results of this study worldwide in industries outside the telecom field as a world standard.

As seen in activities such as NFV, which is designed to take advantage of virtualization technologies in the telecom field, more and more traditional network functions are being realized through software, which increases the complexity of service applications. This will require a server platform with architecture that enables a reduction of the software scale in order to respond to dramatic changes in service and technology trends. Rapid development and scheme to introduce new services into the market are also important to meet user needs. Collaboration between teams in developing innovative services will be more advantageous than developing services separately.

This collaborative study between the three companies started in February, with the goal of creating advanced technology, increasing its level of sophistication, and achieving early feasibility checking for it. We aim to establish new server architecture that will enable us to develop service applications at an early stage. In addition, we aim to expand and apply the resulting technology to support other fields that require reliability, scalability, and maintainability (financial or medical fields, etc.), as well as in the communication network field in the future. Our desire is to see this technology spread and become a global standard. (The core technology for distributed computing with scale-out and redundant architecture will be presented in NTT R&D Forum 2014, which will be held at NTT’s Musashino Research and Development Center on February 13 and 14).