In parallel the alliance launches a global multi-vendor NFV laboratory initiative

Paris, 27^th September 2017 - Atos, a leader in digital transformation, announces today the creation of a multi-vendor alliance with Dell EMC, Intel, Juniper Networks, Red Hat and VMware, to accelerate the delivery of value from NFV (Network Functions Virtualisation). Atos created the alliance to answer the business challenges that telecoms operators face today to migrate the telecoms networks from a traditional physical model to a modern virtual environment.

The alliance is born from a shared vision of how to help our mutual clients achieve the business benefits of:

            - Reduced Capex

            - Reduced Opex

            - Increased business agility

With these objectives in mind, the alliance has designed and built an architecture that uses Commercial Off the Shelf (COTS) products that can be rapidly and effectively deployed as NFV infrastructure. By working closely together, Atos and its partners are helping to resolve integration challenges for "day 1" installations and to reduce the ongoing costs of maintaining a multi-vendor platform as new releases of hardware and software are made available.

The Atos NFV alliance will work with multiple Virtual Network Function (VNF) providers to understand and optimise network and business performance based on known and measured performance.

"As with cloud services five years ago, today we see a similar caution to accelerate the move to NFV and strongly believe we can successfully address our clients' concerns and accelerate their journey. Our aim is to support operator clients in making a seamless transition from traditional infrastructure to virtual infrastructure without loss of service, reputation or revenue.  We are proud to offer a virtual network function selection designed to help enable cost reduction and new revenues faster without compromising on downstream flexibility and choice" Paul Davey, CTO Global Telecoms Industry at Atos.

"Atos and its alliance partners bring together a broad range of capabilities to support a multi-vendor NFV solution, which is the sort of initiative that could resonate with operators.  These broad-based, well-integrated solutions are highly desirable on the path to nirvana - an open, fully interoperable, multi-vendor NFV environment." Comments Kris Szaniawski, Practice Leader, Service Provider Operations & IT, Ovum.

A global multi-vendor NFV Laboratory Initiative

In parallel, the alliance launches its multi-vendor NFV Laboratory Initiative dedicated to fostering a "DevOps" environment designed to simulate real-world scenarios and situations. This helps clients understand how this platform will perform in both VMware and OpenStack environments. The optimised architecture can deliver in excess of 60% total cost of ownership (TCO) reduction over a three-to-five-year period alongside the organisational and operational changes.

Atos and partners have invested in a carrier grade NFV Laboratory located in Grenoble, France. Atos will manage the consortia of telecommunications ecosystem partners and operate and maintain the NFV Laboratory. Atos and partners are establishing a joint team to identify and pursue targeted market and client opportunities, leveraging the NFV Laboratory to help accelerate wider adoption of these mission critical NFV services.

In addition, these companies are creating a joint "go-to-market" program and team to jointly pursue new client opportunities for NFV-enabled business transformation, each bringing their own expertise. NFV is a key emerging trend and only one of many transformational innovations that Atos is bringing into the industry in the coming three years (https://ascent.atos.net/future-networks/ ).

For clients in fixed and mobile carrier markets

The NFV Laboratory focuses on testing, validating and demonstrating mission critical NFV services in the context of specific programs of clients in both the fixed and mobile carrier markets. It helps to:

• Develop the operational processes and performance optimisation actions required to manage network performance in a hybrid and fully virtualised carrier network.
• Apply different configurations and workloads including disaster scenarios and test for the attributes of reliability, scale, performance benchmarking and response actions.
• Support a multi-vendor solution that provides greater flexibility and choice for operators, but with the same commitment and support that they would expect from individual telecom equipment manufacturers delivering carrier-grade solutions.

In the alliance, each member brings its own expertise:

• Atos brings its core IT expertise and track record in security and reliability into the emerging requirement along with its clear business benefit focus.
• Dell EMC PowerEdge servers meet the changing demands of service providers and enterprises, helping drive business success with flexible, scalable platforms adaptable to any workload. PowerEdge rack servers are designed to maximize performance.
• VMware brings the production-proven, carrier-grade VMware vCloud NFV(TM) platform. The platform currently supports 90+ NFV deployments by more than 50 CSPs. VMware vCloud NFV offers both VMware and OpenStack for virtual infrastructure management.
• Red Hat brings its software stack for production-grade NFV infrastructure, with a focus on Red Hat OpenShift and Red Hat OpenStack Platform, and more than two decades' experience in driving innovation through open source communities
• Intel delivers the platform technologies for the industry standard commercial off the shelf (COTS) servers that form the foundation of the Network Functions Virtualization Infrastructure.
• Juniper Networks brings leadership in network virtualisation, including the Contrail family of orchestration solutions - along with both high-performance switches and routers and a deep knowledge and understanding of Service Provider environments

This proposition sets out to solve the business challenges of today whilst understanding and resolving the challenges of tomorrow.

About Atos

Atos is a global leader in digital transformation with approximately 100,000 employees in 72 countries and annual revenue of around € 12 billion. The European number one in Big Data, Cybersecurity, High Performance Computing and Digital Workplace, The Group provides Cloud services, Infrastructure & Data Management, Business & Platform solutions, as well as transactional services through Worldline, the European leader in the payment industry. With its cutting-edge technologies, digital expertise and industry knowledge, Atos supports the digital transformation of its clients across various business sectors: Defense, Financial Services, Health, Manufacturing, Media, Energy & Utilities, Public sector, Retail, Telecommunications and Transportation. The Group is the Worldwide Information Technology Partner for the Olympic & Paralympic Games and operates under the brands Atos, Atos Consulting, Atos Worldgrid, Bull, Canopy, Unify and Worldline. Atos SE (Societas Europaea) is listed on the CAC40 Paris stock index.

Press contact:

Sylvie Raybaud - sylvie.raybaud@atos.net - +33 6 95 91 96 71 - @Sylvie_Raybaud