Alcatel-Lucent continues to accelerate industry adoption of NFV with the addition of new members to the growing CloudBand™ open community

PARIS, June 2, 2014 /PRNewswire/ -- Alcatel-Lucent (Euronext Paris andNYSE: ALU) is advancing the industry adoption of NFV (Network Functions Virtualization) by adding 19 companies to its CloudBand™ Ecosystem Program – the first open community of platform and virtual application vendors and service providers who are developing NFV.

The program, which was created last year to help foster NFV innovation, share knowledge and get to market faster, has continued to expand to a wider circle of businesses with the addition of 6WIND, Cellwize, ConteXtream, EXFO, Fusion-io, IPgallery, JDSU, Netrounds, Peer App, Procera, PT Inovacao e Sistema/PT Innovation and Systems, Qosmos, RADCOM, Red Hat, Saisei Networks, Sonusnet, Tieto, vArmour, and VMware. The CloudBand Ecosystem now includes 36 technology providers and operators who have come together to develop new and innovative use cases and customer trials.

Technology partners and providers have been actively developing and testing NFV workloads on Alcatel-Lucent's distributed cloud environment, using the CloudBand NFV Platform in Alcatel-Lucent's CloudBand Innovation Center, which is open to all ecosystem members. The CloudBand Ecosystem Program is unique in the industry, offering partners free and open access to a live and distributed cloud infrastructure using CloudBand second-generation NFV management and orchestration. Alcatel-Lucent's team of NFV experts provides training, support, and access to this unique infrastructure and workspace. Members can now bring up and test their applications in a simulated cloud environment, and create uses cases to demonstrate their NFV solutions to service providers.

The CloudBand Ecosystem Program recently held its second partner convention at the Alcatel-Lucent CloudBand Innovation Center in Chicago, where 30 NFV-passionate technology providers from 14 companies were trained, shared ideas, and received valuable inputs from the CloudBand team.

Network Functions Virtualization (NFV) technology supports the flexible network infrastructure needed to move complex applications and services to the cloud. It enables service providers to bring the agility, efficiency and economics of the cloud to their own networks and business operations, allowing them to offer cloud services with the performance and reliability that consumers and enterprises expect. 

Dor Skuler, Vice-President and General Manager of Alcatel-Lucent's CloudBand business said: "NFV requires an open multi-vendor approach, as well as a high degree of collaboration and exchange between all contributors in the value chain. The CloudBand Ecosystem Program provides this workspace and leverages the open CloudBand NFV Platform to support a strong community of inclusion that is quickly advancing and innovating NFV solutions that are compatible for the telecommunications industry.''

"Forming partnerships to develop NFV use cases is a requirement of the service providers, but initiating an ecosystem of partners across suppliers and developers is a powerful way to accelerate the eventual adoption of NFV," said Michael Sullivan-Trainor, Executive Analyst of Networking and Mobility at TBR. "Alcatel-Lucent stands out as the only supplier taking the initiative to drive forward such an ecosystem. This leadership will help the industry realize the benefits of NFV that much faster."

Additional information

• CloudBand Ecosystem Program
• CloudBand: The Platform for NFV

About Alcatel-Lucent (Euronext Paris andNYSE: ALU)

We are at the forefront of global communications, providing products and innovations in IP and cloud networking, as well as ultra-broadband fixed and wireless access to service providers and their customers, and to enterprises and institutions throughout the world. Underpinning us in driving the industrial transformation from voice telephony to high-speed digital delivery of data, video and information is Bell Labs, an integral part of the Group and one of the world's foremost technology research institutes, responsible for countless breakthroughs that have shaped the networking and communications industry. Our innovations have resulted in our Group being recognized by Thomson Reuters as a Top 100 Global Innovator, as well as being named by MIT Technology Review as amongst 2012's Top 50 "World's Most Innovative Companies". We have also been recognized for innovation in sustainability, being named Industry Group Leader in the Technology Hardware & Equipment sector in the 2013 Dow Jones Sustainability Indices review, for making global communications more sustainable, affordable and accessible, all in pursuit of the Group's mission to realize the potential of a connected world.

With revenues of Euro 14.4 billion in 2013, Alcatel-Lucent is listed on the Paris and New York stock exchanges (Euronext andNYSE: ALU). The company is incorporated in France and headquartered in Paris.

For more information, visit Alcatel-Lucent on: http://www.alcatel-lucent.com read the latest posts on the Alcatel-Lucent blog http://www.alcatel-lucent.com/blog and follow the Company on Twitter: http://twitter.com/Alcatel_Lucent.

SOURCE Alcatel-Lucent