Dell Technologies has jumped even further into the lucrative telecommunications space by announcing products and services designed to help providers upgrade their infrastructure and prepare for 5G.
Dennis Hoffman, Senior Vice President and General Manager, Dell Technologies Telecommunications Systems Business
“The telecommunications industry has never been more important to society,” said Dennis Hoffman, senior vice president and general manager of Dell Technologies Telecommunication Systems business, during a media briefing. “It really makes possible this ‘everything from everywhere’ world we live in now. Yet, ironically, the industry has never been more challenging, investing billions a year to deploy and operate networks, only to see the vast majority of the economic returns from those networks go elsewhere. So for network operators, the hope and promise of the end era, as well as the 5G technology that makes it largely possible, will not be captured without transformation. “
Three main initiatives make up the new proposals.
Metalweaver project
Project Metalweaver is a software solution that allows cloud service providers to select, autonomously deploy, and manage thousands of multi-vendor computing, network, and storage devices in multiple locations. It also allows them to easily scale existing resources and is supported by Dell Technologies’ global support and services.
Reference architectures
Dell Technologies has developed a series of reference architectures covering the edge, core, and Open RAN networks. These include a full stack of guidelines, deployment options, and operational recommendations for specific applications, and build on Dell Technologies’ core infrastructure solutions with VMware Telco cloud platform and Red Hat OpenShift.
Initial deployments will include:
- Basic software solutions from Established networks.
- Private network solutions from CommScope RUCKUS.
- Multicast Edge Solutions (MEC) with Intel Smart Edge.
- Dell Technologies is collaborating Mavenir to develop 5G Open RAN software with Dell EMC PowerEdge XR11 robust servers.
- Basic software solutions from Nokia.
“Fundamentally, we believe we can help communications service providers really capture what we believe, once in a lifetime,” Hoffman said. “There are three things that have to happen for this to happen. First, they must be able to build and secure revenue from the final calculations. This is something we think is uniquely suited to help. Second, they need to modernize network architectures. The legacy network is not as agile as it should be, nor is it software-defined, and it is not essentially the cloud’s own. And that really gets to the last piece, and that is that the operations that are used in the cloud need to become the main mechanism through which the communications service provider works. This last thing, taking all three of these things together, really determines the transformation. “
The reference architectures will be available at the end of the summer.
Telecom laboratory
To help partners and customers explore and collaborate on telecommunications solutions, Dell Technologies has announced Open the Telecom Ecosystem Lab. The carrier’s test environment in the main lab, located at Dell Technologies’ Round Rock headquarters in Texas, will allow CSPs to reflect a client-side solution testing environment. They will also be able to incubate new solutions in the laboratory and market them quickly. Dell Technologies plans to build several satellite labs around the world (the first is in Tokyo, with two other sites being investigated), as well as to provide virtual access.
“This is really an area that we make it possible for all of the independent hardware vendors, software vendors, system integrators, standards bodies and various consortia, existing network equipment vendors and a number of other service providers to come together, test, certify, they operate equipment, work problems and develop solutions that can be delivered in forms ranging from simple reference architectures to turnkey service solutions and delivered to communication service providers, ”Hoffman explained. “But to be clear, this does not replace the collaborative or collaborative innovation efforts we have today with our own equipment carriers or other laboratories that we have joined. But a lab expansion problem is beginning to arise that makes it difficult for carriers to know exactly where to go to figure out what to consume, what works best, what works together, and what’s stable and scalable enough to bet on business them, except to do everything unilaterally individually or bilaterally in their own laboratories. “
Opportunities for partners
Members of Dell Technologies Affiliate Program have access to engineering resources and project management support as they design, build, market and sell their new solutions and services. The company said Dell Financial Services offers CSP flexible solutions to pay for the products and services they buy to build their networks.
The channel’s partners will play a crucial role in helping Dell distribute calculations, especially to end sites worldwide. “For a whole bunch of reasons.” “I think everything that really seems like an opportunity for Dell here is an equal opportunity for our channel partners,” Hoffman said.
“As operators continue to make huge investments in network upgrades, including 5G, there are opportunities to create destructive computing edge architectures that allow for new enterprise services and architectures and a range of consumer services not yet designed,” telecommunications said. . consultant Mark Goldberg. “It’s still a great time to be in the telecommunications space and there are great opportunities for entrepreneurs to come out of this generational change in network architectures and capabilities.”