PALO ALTO, CA–(Marketwired – November 02, 2016) – VMware, Inc. (NYSE: VMW) today further expanded the company’s growing ecosystem of VMware Ready™ for Network Functions Virtualization (NFV) certified solutions, with new certified solutions from A10 Networks, Fortinet, Riverbed, UANGEL, Viptela and ZTE. VMware has now certified 22 Virtual Network Functions from 19 vendors worldwide. VMware’s growing set of NFV partners helps global communications service providers adopt and deploy NFV to transform their operations and service portfolio with speed and confidence.

The complete list of VMware Ready™ for NFV certified solutions is available on the VMware Solution Exchange (VSX). VMware Ready for NFV allows partners to certify their virtual network functions (VNFs) for interoperability with two fundamental VMware NFV components: NFV Infrastructure (NFVI) and a Virtualized Infrastructure Manager (VIM). The VMware Ready certification provides CSPs with the confidence that VMware partner VNF solutions will seamlessly and effectively deploy, run, and interoperate with VMware 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.

• A10 Networks vThunder ADC and CGN Products: A10 Networks® Thunder® ADC product line of high-performance, next-generation application delivery controllers enables customers’ applications to be highly available, accelerated and secure. Thunder ADC delivers up to 220 Gbps of throughput in a single appliance or 1.7 Tbps of throughput in a cluster. The A10 Networks Thunder CGN product line of Carrier Grade Networking gateways provide high-performance, highly transparent address and protocol translation that allows service providers to extend their IPv4 network connectivity, while simultaneously making the transition to IPv6. These products are available in a broad range of form factors, and A10 Networks vThunder ADC and CGN can be deployed in a VMware vSphere® virtualized environment.

• Fortinet FortiGate-VM: Fortinet’s Security Fabric provides market-leading security solutions for virtualized and cloud environments. The FortiGate Enterprise Firewall virtual solutions provide proven, scalable security while delivering the flexibility and benefits of VNF-based packaging: unmatched ROI, rapid provisioning, east-west traffic visibility, and unlimited scalability for provider-scale clouds and services. FortiGate virtual solutions can be tightly orchestrated with VMware vCloud NFV and third-party orchestration in a seamlessly integrated NFV stack.

• SteelHead CX for Virtual Deployments: Riverbed® SteelHead™ CX for Virtual Deployments extends optimization and performance to VMware vSphere-based NFV environments. Built on the same SteelHead optimization system that powers physical, cloud, and mobile deployments, SteelHead CX for Virtual brings the same benefits — accelerating application performance while reducing bandwidth — without the physical requirements. Riverbed SteelHead CX leverages a superior data reduction algorithm and transport layer optimization to provide up to 100x performance improvements for the greatest bandwidth savings, application acceleration and productivity improvements.

• UANGEL Virtualized Service Control Point (vSCP): UANGEL vSCP is an advanced IN (Intelligent Network) solution providing traditional IN services and Next-Generation IN services, that enables the successful operation of all session types and events including voice, SMS, data and value-added services for all subscriber types, whether in the network or roaming. The UANGEL vSCP supports any network type (wireline, wireless, cable), numerous network profiles (IMS, GSM/UMTS, CDMA, etc.) and network evolutions (GPRS, EDGE, UMTS, CDMA 1X, etc.). It can also fully support, in parallel, any network combination (IMS & 3G, GSM & CDMA, wireless & wireline, etc.), all on the same SCP platform which is executed in NFV environments.

• Viptela SD-WAN Solution: The Viptela SD-WAN solution delivers secure end-to-end network virtualization in the Wide Area Network, providing enterprise grade routing, security, centralized policy and orchestration capabilities. It enables a robust security foundation that eliminates major challenges associated with cloud migration to IaaS and SaaS, mixing WAN transports (MPLS, Internet, 4G, LTE) and rolling out provisioning changes rapidly to a global network. Highlights include centralized policy and distributed enforcement, scale-out architecture with redundancy, end-to-end network segmentation, automated Zero-Touch Provisioning, encrypted control and data traffic and the freedom to choose any transport network, independent of the carrier’s service.

• ZTE vEPC: ZTE vEPC solution is based on ZTE’s virtualized core network (vCN) architecture, which adopts low coupling and stateless design that provides a new carrier-class experience, ease-of-management and ease-of-integration covering 2G/3G/4G/5G core networks. ZTE vEPC supports convergent Gateway with TCO savings for multi-network co-existence, seamless mobility and migration to future network with software upgrading only. Geographical redundancy provides reliable services even when one site is out of service and a multi-level disaster recovery mechanism guarantees network reliability reaches 99.999%. ZTE vEPC provides refined traffic management based on 3GPP PCC architecture, dynamic charging and policy control, and QoS management.

“VMware offers a broad ecosystem of certified NFV partners and we are creating a true marketplace for customers to build new services based on best-in-class virtual network functions,” said Gabriele Di Piazza, vice president of solutions, Telco NFV Group at VMware. “VMware is delivering openness and choice across the NFV technology stack — NFVI, VIM, VNFs and Orchestration — and we are extending our coverage across mobile, wirelines, SD-WAN GiLAN and even security. This, combined with our Cross-Cloud Architecture™ that delivers a common operating environment across the network services and telco IT cloud environments, is enabling VMware to become a go-to partner for digital telco transformation.”

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.