When it comes to information technology, we are truly living in exciting times. Virtualization, cloud, big data, IoT and mobility technologies are fundamentally changing the way in which businesses, both big and small, relate to and consume technology.
As this occurs, service providers are increasingly becoming the face of IT service delivery for startups and even many enterprises. Service providers around the world are aggressively investing in cloud & related technologies to meet these growing market needs. Dell has been at the forefront of this shift for more than a decade now.
Though many may not realize it, Dell has a long history of delivering tailored offerings to cloud and communications service providers through our Extreme Scale Infrastructure (ESI) division, and the growth of such services throughout the broader marketplace is being accelerated even further by the need for edge computing and the rise of the Internet of Things (IoT).
Specifically, facilities-based telco and multi-system operators (MSOs) are modernizing legacy central office environments and virtualizing the service and network functions currently running on proprietary systems. At the same time, the building blocks they use for compute, storage, and networking need to meet the rigorous requirements the industry has built over time. Dell is leading the way in building new future-ready, service provider-focused solutions for these customers and we’re excited to showcase these advances at this year’s Mobile World Congress in Barcelona.
At MWC 2017, our ESI team is bringing together several key components of the Dell Technologies portfolio into a unified solution built to flexibly address this service provider shift at multiple levels. Imagine flexible compute, storage, and open networking infrastructure built on industry-standard systems management APIs that also include the ability to collect and analyze IoT data at the edge while further supporting leading network functions virtualization (NFV) technologies and the global management of power, cooling & related ‘facility-level’ information…all in one ground-breakingly innovative solution.
Because not all service provider environments are created equal, our approach is uniquely flexible and built around our proven DSS 9000 rack-scale infrastructure. This allows providers to tailor compute, storage, and networking needs to their requirements, scaling as needed, all while staying ahead of the curve on rapidly-changing power and systems management advances.
Dell remains committed to open technologies and has built the DSS 9000 to take advantage of the Distributed Management Task Force (DMTF) Redfish specification for hardware interoperability. In concert with our technology partner Intel and their Rack Scale Design (RSD) initiative, we have built a highly extensible and open management framework that serves as the nerve center of this highly-scalable service provider solution. Providers can easily discover and provision resources within and across dynamic pools, even across data centers, on demand at any time.
But the underlying hardware infrastructure is just one piece of the story. We’ve leveraged our many years of modular data center expertise with leading cloud providers to encapsulate all of this exciting technology into a miniaturized software-defined package that we call a micro MDC. Though we’ve talked about the micro MDC previously, the version you’ll see at Mobile World Congress adds several new elements that are of specific interest to service providers looking to enable edge computing and IoT services quickly and flexibly. You can take a deep dive into the solution details here.
The first big advance specific to service providers is around NFV technology, where we’ve built in support for Dell’s 100 percent open software-defined networking (SDN) solutions encompassing a variety of virtualized network function (VNF) providers, management operations (MANO), and NFVI orchestration solutions including those for OpenStack and VMware (who will be showcasing major advances of their own in the Dell Technologies booth at this year’s MWC).
Secondly, we’ve enabled the Dell Edge Gateway 5000 as part of the solution for providers looking to collect and analyze IoT-related data closer to their customers, where the true explosion in service needs are coming. We’ll also be showcasing our MDCi control software for the first time as part of this package, which allows operators insights into how the overall data center environment is functioning in terms of power, cooling, and other key ‘facility-level’ parameters.
As you can see, we’re excited to show you the transformative business value we’re delivering to service providers and their customers at this year’s Mobile World Congress. If you happen to be in Barcelona at the show, please stop by the Dell Technologies booth (Hall 3, Booth 3K10) to see how we can help address your needs with uniquely tailored solutions built around your business. Or reach out to us at any time at ESI@dell.com with questions or comments.
