Dell Technologies is helping the telecommunications industry accelerate the adoption of open, cloud-native technologies with new solutions and partnerships, including Dell Telecom Infrastructure Blocks for Red Hat, new Dell PowerEdge edge servers, a private wireless program and expanded lab capabilities.

“The promise of open telecom network architecture is clear to operators, but has so far been a challenge to realize,” said senior vice president and general manager, Dell Technologies Telecom Systems Business, Dennis Hoffman. “To address this challenge, the industry needs to create consumable, tested solutions that telecom operators can confidently deploy in their networks. With our new partnerships, solutions and expanded lab capabilities, Dell Technologies is quickly growing the industry ecosystem and bringing together communications service providers and technology partners, so we can put open innovation into action.”

Dell collaborates with Red Hat to expand Telecom Infrastructure Block portfolio

Dell introduces Telecom Infrastructure Blocks for Red Hat to help network operators meet the demands of 5G core and radio access network (RAN) workloads. The fully engineered, cloud-native solution is co-designed with Red Hat and backed by Dell services and support. The solution includes the hardware, software and subscriptions network operators need to build, scale out and power core network functions using Red Hat OpenShift and Red Hat Advanced Cluster Management for Kubernetes.

Today’s telecom networks are typically built with siloed, vendor-specific stacks that limit operational agility and infrastructure efficiency. Dell’s solution is based on open technologies and simplifies the design, deployment and lifecycle management of a telecom cloud. With the expanded Telecom Infrastructure Block portfolio, network operators can improve the efficiency of how they use their IT resources to reduce operational costs and power consumption, which lowers their carbon footprint.

ACG Research estimates that CSPs deploying Dell Telecom Infrastructure Blocks can reduce OpEx by 40 per cent and CapEx by 10 per cent versus deploying telecom cloud infrastructure without the Dell solution. ACG found that, by reducing power and cooling expenses, 833 Metric tons of total CO2 emissions can be saved over five years, which is equivalent to driving 179 gas-powered cars for one year or the average amount of electricity used by 162 homes during one year1.

“We are excited about the value that Dell is delivering with their Telecom Infrastructure Block strategy and their commitment to providing choice in the telecom cloud stack,” said executive vice president and chief network officer, Dish Wireless, Marc Rouanne,. “Red Hat is a strategic player in telecom. We see this announcement as a positive step toward further ecosystem diversity and accelerating open and virtualized networks.”

“Networks operating at scale from the core to the edge require layered capabilities, across infrastructure and software-defined architecture, with added security measures, orchestration and cloud-native applications,” said  vice president, telco, media, entertainment and edge ecosystem, Red Hat, Honoré LaBourdette. “By collaborating through an ecosystem of skilled hardware and software vendors, we are better equipped to deliver tailored solutions for network operators that meet their unique needs. Red Hat OpenShift provides a standard cloud-native platform to power core network functions across any IT landscape for greater flexibility, agility and business results.”

Dell introduces PowerEdge servers designed for open telecom networks and the enterprise edge

New Dell PowerEdge XR8000, XR7620 and XR5610 servers are specifically designed for telecom, open RAN and mobile edge computing workloads while simplifying edge operations. The compact servers are based on 4th Gen Intel Xeon Scalable processors. Those with Intel vRAN Boost can eliminate the need for an external accelerator card resulting in approximately 20 percent additional compute power savings for lower cost of ownership than previous servers.2

The scalable, modular designs simplify deployment and maintenance, while Network Equipment Building Systems Level 3 compliance and Zero Trust enabling capabilities help provide safety and security in the field. With Dell’s Smart Cooling technology the servers can use less power and offer increased performance. In addition, the systems will support temperatures from –5 to 55 degrees Celsius in edge locations from the factory floor to remote cellular base stations.3

“Through our valued technical partnership and accommodating our requirements for evolved distributed unit platforms, Vodafone applauds the addition of the XR8000 to the Dell Technologies PowerEdge portfolio,” said Open RAN RF and digital platform development manager, Vodafone, Andy Dunkin. “It is a dense compute and modular solution with the environmental specification and form factor that will facilitate O-RAN deployment.”

Dell private 5G wireless portfolio delivers choice and flexibility for CSPs and enterprises

The Dell Private Wireless Programme, built upon a diverse ecosystem of partners, is designed to offer CSPs and enterprise customers more choice in private wireless solutions, so they can find the best fit for their own needs. Jointly developed with technology partners, the private wireless solutions, based on open architectures, are pre-tested and validated by Dell and include self-service operations capabilities. Dell professionals remove complexity through solution integration, end-to-end management and support.

Dell Private Wireless with Airspan and Expeto is a fully integrated solution for medium and large enterprises to extend on-site and remote application support across private and public 4G and 5G networks. Dell Private Wireless with Athonet helps small and medium businesses quickly deploy their choice of network architecture, radio vendor or spectrum band for an affordable, easy-to-use private wireless solution.

Dell drives global telecom ecosystem collaboration with expanded lab capabilities

The Dell Open Telecom Ecosystem Lab, located in Round Rock, Texas, supports more than 25 customers and partners with testing, certifying and validating open telecom solutions and applications, so they can be quickly and easily deployed in telecom networks. Dell is ramping its efforts to accelerate innovation and simplify ecosystem collaboration with:

A new Open Telecom Ecosystem Lab in Cork, Ireland, open today, to offer customers and partners another location to collaborate across the global, open telecom ecosystem.

Dell Open Telecom Ecosystem Lab Validation Services, which build upon the lab’s capabilities to give customers dedicated access to Dell engineers for ongoing design consultation and validation, helping CSPs to mitigate risk and launch new solutions and services more quickly.

A new Wind River self-certification lab testing environment for partners to test and validate their software with the Wind River Studio cloud-native platform before deploying in a telecom network.

Availability

Dell Telecom Infrastructure Blocks for Red Hat will be globally available in the second half of 2023.

The new Dell PowerEdge servers will be globally available beginning in May 2023.

Dell Private Wireless with Expeto and Airspan is already available globally.

Dell Private Wireless with Athonet is already available globally.

Dell Open Telecom Ecosystem Lab Validation Services will be globally available starting in the first half of 2023.