Dell has introduced its NFV solution offerings and companion starter kits, comprising Dell systems and software combined with software from open ecosystem partners and open source distributions to help jumpstart carrier trials and adoption.
Dell’s NFV solutions can help telecommunications service providers improve cost structures of existing service delivery and simply and quickly enable new service innovation and creation. This is achieved by virtualising the telecommunications and mobile service infrastructure using industry-standard compute and open networking platforms, combined with commercially available software packages at the infrastructure, management, orchestration and service layers.
The Dell NFV platform uses the latest server, storage, networking and software technologies from Dell combined with software from open ecosystem partners to form fully-converged, virtualised infrastructure that can execute virtual network functions (VNFs). The platform also includes foundational software and open interfaces for Management and Orchestration (MANO) for simple operation and ease of integration. From a deployment perspective, the Dell NFV platform can be dimensioned and equipped for application virtually anywhere, at any scale, in a carrier environment.
Dell’s NFV platform delivers advantages to end-customers, OEM partners, and systems integrators including:
* 100% open and standard: The Dell NFV platform is built on Dell PowerEdge servers with the latest Intel Xeon E5-2600v3 processors combined with the innovative open networking platforms and a rich set of open interfaces ensuring maximum interoperability, manageability, and investment protection.
* Scalable in any direction: The Dell NFV platform can scale easily—up, down, or out—to accommodate a wide range of design goals, service capabilities and environmental conditions from small, unstaffed points-of-presences, to central office environments, and to hyperscale data centres. This includes options for Network Equipment-Building System (NEBS) platforms, Fresh-Air systems and modular/containerised solutions.
* Driving open source innovation: The Dell NFV platform aims to provide a choice of software stack to complement Dell’s infrastructure and management software. This announcement extends Dell’s collaboration with Red Hat to co-engineer OpenStack-based NFV and SDN solutions specifically for the telecommunications industry.
* Open partner ecosystem: Dell is investing heavily to foster an open partner ecosystem and welcomes participation and engagement without exclusivity across all functional areas. This includes partnerships to form the Dell NFV platform itself, to enable complete MANO capabilities, to support other Linux and OpenStack distributions to tailor the Dell NFV platform for VNF deployments including the Ubuntu operating system, Ubuntu OpenStack, Wind River and provide support for a wide range of VNFs.
Open source technologies, combined with open standards, are central to the Dell NFV platform architecture. Through collaborations with industry leaders – such as Intel’s Open Network Platform reference architecture and open source and open standard initiatives – developers and end-customers can gain direct access to the technology underpinnings that allow for rapid innovation and customisation.
Dell’s open source and open standard efforts and contributions related to NFV include:
* Industry-standard Intel Xeon processor-based server platforms, with contributions to the Open Compute Project (OCP);
* Dell upgraded its OpenDaylight membership to the highest level, Platinum
* Industry-standard storage platforms and protocols including support for open source Ceph and Swift implementations;
* Collaboration with Red Hat on open source projects to help enable seamless hardware and software installation and configuration including Dell Cloud Manager and Red Hat CloudForms for infrastructure orchestration;
* Dell and Red Hat will make NFV test equipment available in their respective customer labs to demonstrate their joint offering;
* Platform support for MAAS (metal-as-a-service) open source software and ManageIQ, JUJU open source orchestration as an optional foundational element;
* Open, standards-based networking equipment supporting Open Networking, industry-standard management interfaces (REST, SNMP), yang models, the OpenDaylight open source SDN controller; and
* Platinum-level, founding member of the Linux Foundation’s Open Platform NFV Project (OPNFV) enabling open source reference implementations.
Collectively, these initiatives and contributions empower end-customers, developers and integrators with the greatest degree of flexibility, agility and control in their NFV deployments.
While production-level Dell NFV platform deployments will ultimately take many forms, Dell is making available starter kit solutions for early adopter proof-of-concepts (PoCs) and trials. The starter kits are smaller footprint Dell NFV platform implementations designed to jumpstart development and PoC efforts. Two different starter kit configurations are available now; one based around the new PowerEdge R630 1RU compute nodes the other based around the Dell M1000e blade chassis and the new M630 compute blades.
The starter kits include equipment bill-of-materials, tested reference designs and configurations, and product support – providing end-customers, developers and partners a cost-effective, highly-extensible environment to evaluate NFV-based service delivery.