Elastic everything — What of the developing world?

Telecommunications along with cloud computing are in the process of a transformation towards a Cloud Integrated Network (CIN)[1] triggered by an elastic network in the form of two disruptive technologies Software Defined Networking (SDN) and Network Function Virtualisation (NFV). This project is considering how key infrastructure development at national level and changed Local SPs (LSP) network architectures and business models can deliver the CIN within the constraints of a developing country. A potential set of solutions will be developed through experimental simulations and system models to demonstrate how the CIN can be delivered by rural SPs in a developing nation. While the project is in its early stages, work at the Ugandan Internet eXchange Point (IXP) virtualising services, adding an Akamai Content Delivery Node (CDN) has demonstrated an increased demand and has necessitated a corresponding upgrade to core switches. An OpenStack orchestration laboratory has been built for experimentation with NFV orchestration and Virtual Infrastructure Manager (VIM) functions. A similar testbed will consider Open Source MANO (OSM) and the Open Network Automation Platform (ONAP) Projects. The project will develop potential architectures for the delivery of the CIN to the rural customers of LSPs as well as consider the need for eXchangelets in the future.