VMware Expands Network Functions Virtualization Partner Ecosystem With New VMware Ready NFV Certified Solutions and Program Participants

PALO ALTO, CA--(Marketwired - June 01, 2016) - VMware, Inc. (NYSE: VMW) today announced the expansion of the company's Telco NFV partner ecosystem with three new certified VMware Ready™ NFV solutions and four new members to the VMware Ready NFV program. VMware now has nine certified solutions from eight different vendors for VMware vCloud NFV, including newly certified partners F5, Silver Peak and VeloCloud. Additionally, Infoblox, Netrounds and two of the largest global network equipment providers (NEPs) have joined Mitel as partners with solutions currently going through certification.

VMware Ready NFV allows partners to certify their virtual network functions (VNFs) for compatibility with VMware NFV infrastructure (NFVi). The VMware Ready certification provides CSPs with the confidence that partner VNF solutions will seamlessly and efficiently deploy, run, and interoperate with vCloud NFV. The VMware Ready program designates VMware's highest level of endorsement for products and solutions created by our established partners, and accreditation builds customer confidence and accelerates further opportunities for collaboration as leaders in the cloud.

"VMware continues to make excellent progress in advancing our innovative vCloud NFV platform, and the VMware Ready NFV program is critical to helping customers adopt and deploy NFV with confidence," said Gabriele Di Piazza, vice president, products and solutions, Telco NFV Group at VMware. "Together, VMware and its partners are helping customers transform their businesses with network functions virtualization that helps them lower costs considerably and enables rapid and agile service innovation."

Previously certified solutions include Affirmed Networks Mobile Content Cloud™; Brocade Virtual Evolved Packet Core; Metaswitch Networks Clearwater Core (IMS Core) and Perimeta SBC (Session Border Controller); Procera Networks PacketLogic/V; and Versa Networks VNFs. The newest certified solutions include:

• F5® BIG-IP® Virtual Edition:F5 provides a complete suite of Virtual Network Functions (VNFs) that can be deployed on VMware vSphere® running on commodity servers. F5 VNFs deliver all the same L4-L7 services -- including application delivery control, intelligent traffic steering, DNS, firewall, policy enforcement, and signaling management -- that run on F5 purpose-built hardware.

• Silver Peak Unity EdgeConnect SD-WAN: Silver Peak's SD-WAN solution delivers a level of quality of service over broadband that meets or exceeds the performance, reliability and security customers expect from a private line. With the Silver Peak SD-WAN solution, enterprises can improve the resiliency of their WAN, dynamically balance traffic across multiple paths and increase application performance over any source of connectivity. In addition, Silver Peak offers customers the option to add a WAN acceleration performance pack, Unity Boost, to reduce bandwidth requirements and deliver even higher levels of application performance over distance. Read Silver Peak's news release.

• VeloCloud Cloud-Delivered SD-WAN™: VeloCloud enables enterprises to simplify remote and branch office deployments while delivering secure optimized access to applications in cloud and private datacenters. Service providers are able to deploy true multi-tenant SD-WAN as a value-add revenue generating service and deliver elastic transport, performance for cloud applications, in both on-net and off-net cases. A key component of VeloCloud Cloud-Delivered SD-WAN is the VMware Ready NFV certified VeloCloud Edge, which hosts virtual network function (VNF) services and includes VeloCloud Dynamic Multipath Optimization™ to deliver deep application recognition, application and packet steering, performance metrics and end to end quality of experience. Read VeloCloud's news release.

VMware vCloud NFV brings together the core virtualization and management components required to accelerate NFV deployment. VMware vCloud NFV enables CSPs to deploy a unified, multi-vendor and multi-function NFV platform that supports any application at all stages of cloud evolution. The platform enables IT, Network and Operations departments to leverage existing skills and operational experience with VMware virtualization, providing a faster and smoother implementation and ongoing management of Telco clouds.

Partner and Industry Commentary
"NFV is beginning to have a significant impact for a number of leading CSPs as they transform their networks, operations, engineering, and services organization and embrace virtualization, DevOps, and open source software," said Nav Chander, research manager, enterprise telecom, IDC. "This journey toward this transformation of network infrastructure and services, to an NFV-enabled network architecture, will be a bumpy road over the next several years. The quick ramp of VMware in certifying partner solutions on the vCloud NFV platform demonstrates a strong commitment from the company to helping CSP customers in addressing the challenges of NFV adoption."

"As service providers evolve their networks to support 4G, 5G, and IoT, highly scalable and flexible virtual network functions (VNFs) are needed to support new architectural footprints and deliver network agility for innovative services," said Calvin Rowland, senior vice president of Business Development, F5 Networks. "By completing VMware Ready NFV certification, F5 continues to extend its industry leadership in offering validated solutions that enable service providers to maintain high levels of availability, deliver new services faster to market, and provide a higher quality of experience for subscribers."

"Silver Peak Unity EdgeConnect enables service providers to deliver a unique SD-WAN solution as a managed service or as part of an NFV offering," said John Vincenzo, senior vice president at Silver Peak. "By leveraging Silver Peak's VMware Ready NFV certified solution, service providers can accelerate time to market to offer a variety of new and differentiated, revenue-generating WAN-as-a-service solutions in- and out-of-region faster and easier than ever."

"VMware NFVi compatibility provides carriers, telcos, operators and service providers with a broader range of platforms to deliver truly multi-tenant VeloCloud Cloud-Delivered SD-WAN," said Michael Wood, vice president of Marketing at VeloCloud Networks. "VMware Ready NFV certification gives our partners the confidence and flexibility to securely, reliably and rapidly deploy VeloCloud Cloud-Delivered SD-WAN on the platform of their choice."

Additional Resources

• View the complete list of VMware Ready NFV certified solutions on the VMware Solution Exchange (VSX)
• Learn more about the VMware vCloud NFV Platform
• Catch up with VMware on TelecomTV
• Read the VMware Telco NFV Blog
• Connect with VMware on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and Google+

About VMware
VMware is a global leader in cloud infrastructure and business mobility. Built on VMware's industry-leading virtualization technology, our solutions deliver a brave new model of IT that is fluid, instant and more secure. Customers can innovate faster by rapidly developing, automatically delivering and more safely consuming any application. With 2015 revenues of $6.6 billion, VMware has more than 500,000 customers and 75,000 partners. The company is headquartered in Silicon Valley with offices throughout the world and can be found online at www.vmware.com.

VMware, vCloud, VMware Ready, vCloud NFV, VMware Ready and vSphere are registered trademarks or trademarks of VMware, Inc. in the United States and other jurisdictions.