LG Uplus announced on August 12th that it acquired the OPNFV Verified Program (OVP) certification for Network Function Virtualization platforms that is essential to establishing 5G networks.
The Open Virtual Platform (OVP) provides industry criteria for functionality and verification defined by the Open Platform for NFV (OPNFV), a consortium for developing network function virtualization integrated platforms.
OPNFV issued OVP certification for virtualization platforms that pass the 215 criteria, including service continuity, automated recovery, and rapid delivery of new services in the event of a failure.
Up until now, OVP has been introduced and certified mainly by overseas equipment manufacturers, but LG Uplus has succeeded in introducing and obtaining OVP certification for the first time among other telecommunication carriers.
The enterprise virtualization platform (known as LTE Enterprise Private Network Service) is the certification target, and the acquisition of the certification secures the reliability of the service internationally and secures the verification capability and solution of the virtualization platform based on industry standards.
In particular, LG Uplus plans to contribute to the development of South Korea’s virtualization industry and ecosystem by sharing its test capabilities and solutions with domestic equipment manufacturers.
The Magok LG Science Park is equipped with network, server equipment, and automated verification tools to enable domestic equipment manufacturers to apply and verify directly in the environment where virtualization platforms will be operated.
Furthermore, LG Uplus plans to apply OVP to all virtualization platforms deployed in 5G, which will provide commercial services next year, to further verify reliability of service quality.
“Once 5G is in full swing, it can be combined with new technologies such as cloud, big data, and artificial intelligence. It is more important to ensure quality because network optimization and flexible infrastructure expansion are essential to handle more data and deliver services in a timely manner,” said Lee Sang-hyun, LG Uplus NW development manager.
