Communications Service Providers (CSPs) are going through one of their biggest transformations ever as they transform their network to include 5G capabilities. This transformation is truly a game changer as it enables businesses of all sizes, as well as consumers, to take advantage of low latency and high throughput. Further, the need for this transformation became increasingly evident as the global pandemic pushed systems and bandwidth to a breaking point with individuals stuck at home, using their devices for streaming and applications. But to realize the true potential of this network transformation, and to monetize new and existing services in an efficient manner, CSPs must drive more capabilities to the edge and achieve better outcomes.
In order to keep up with the pace of innovation, CSPs must develop agility through disaggregation and implement capabilities across hundreds of thousands of devices across multiple premises. This puts new demands on network technology and drives the move to introduce new ways to operate and consume network infrastructure. With the introduction of virtualization, specifically for the Radio Access Network (RAN), we are now “cloudifying” the network. This allows the opportunity for cloud infrastructure companies like Dell Technologies to utilize their telecom-grade industry standard servers for the RAN configuration, as well as the edge and core. This, of course, can introduce challenges as the same CSPs struggle to utilize cloud technologies such as containers and virtualization, as well as bare metal.
As a result of all these changes – from business to technology – the need to efficiently orchestrate the deployment and management of hundreds of thousands of virtual and containerized infrastructure components, across geographical areas, is essential. So why does this matter? Frankly, the faster you can deploy your programmable infrastructure and the quicker you can start utilizing cloud-native and virtual network functions, the more efficiently you can build out the applications that drive the services your customers are looking for. And on top that, utilizing the declarative automation approach reduces errors and reliance on specific expertise.
On June 9th, 2021, we announced Project Metalweaver. This project was cultivated within Dell Technologies and was developed with a final goal to help our customers build and operate a bare metal cloud by enabling them to easily select, autonomously deploy and manage thousands of multi-vendor compute, network and storage devices across multiple locations.
Dell Technologies Bare Metal Orchestrator is the first launch of our Project Metalweaver vision. It is a seamless software solution, allowing CSPs to build and operate their virtual network infrastructure across multiple premises, enabling them to focus on new, advanced and profitable services faster and at massive, highly distributed scale.
Bare Metal Orchestrator gives our customers the ability to identify bare metal servers and accelerate deployment of software across multiple premises, reducing operational costs by orchestrating lifecycle management across hundreds of thousands of servers. By utilizing a declarative automation approach with programmable infrastructure, based on workload requirements, Bare Metal Orchestrator enables CSPs to make changes to infrastructure quickly, with Bare Metal Orchestrator doing all the work and simplifying the process. Simply put, you tell the system what to do, such as upgrading the BIOS, but you do not have to tell it how to do it. The result – you can minimize errors, technical debt and reliance on domain expertise. These capabilities are all available by accessing a unified user interface, which also allows for telemetry, metering and lifecycle management of the resources, to help CSPs accelerate innovation and the ability to deliver differentiated services at scale.
You can find more information here.
