(Telecompaper) Telefonica has announced plans to work with open source provider Red Hat and Intel on the creation of a virtual infrastructure management (VIM) platform based on open source software running on standard Intel-based servers. The research is part of Telefonica's recently created Network Functions Virtualization (NFV) Reference Lab aimed at helping its industry partners and network equipment providers test and develop virtual network functions along with upper service orchestration layers. Telefonica, Red Hat, and Intel will each commit engineering and testing resources in open collaboration with partners and the open source community to enable these technologies to achieve the levels of performance and functionality NFV workloads require to make the vision of the 'Open Digital Telco' a reality.