Case Study: a cloud service provider accelerates VNF lifecycle validation with Spirent Communications

Virtualized Network Functions Service Provider - Customer Case Study

A cloud service provider in the telecommunications industry, serving over three million customers, faced the challenge of rapidly rolling out new services. The company’s reliance on dedicated network hardware was causing it to miss business opportunities, so it sought to move to a more agile, software-defined network using Network Functions Virtualization (NFV). This transition introduced complexity due to inconsistent and evolving APIs from various vendors, requiring a robust and adaptable system to test the lifecycle management of virtualized network functions (VNFs) to prevent instability.

Spirent Communications implemented its VNF Lifecycle Validation solution, a portable and adaptable test automation architecture built on well-defined API layers. This system abstracted vendor-specific interfaces, allowing the service provider to thoroughly validate all NFV components. The solution utilized Spirent's test traffic generation tools, including Spirent TestCenter and Spirent Avalanche, to ensure VNF functionality and performance. By leveraging this architecture, the provider could accelerate testing, ensure high-quality service deployment, and successfully validate a wide variety of VNFs from different vendors on its fixed NFV infrastructure.