World-class telecommunications: Key to keeping the lights on in challenging times

[AndyBryant]

The Covid 19 pandemic up-ended life as we knew it in early 2020. And today, in January of 2022, we still face the uncertainly of a virus that poses new dangers as variants evolve. The ongoing threat to the health of humans around the world demonstrates, in stark reality, the critical nature of telecommunications architecture and the role it plays in keeping businesses, healthcare and educational institutions, governments, and personal relationships connected and functioning.

In the past two years, people from almost every walk of life have come to rely on technology for information, to facilitate social distancing, to enable working from home, and to give our children options for remote or distance learning.

Set against this backdrop, HPE is proud to have been a key contributor in helping our customers and partners mitigate risk while enabling their organizations to continue to function and serve their own stakeholders throughout this crisis.

Let’s look back and review some of the 2021 highlights from the Telecom, Communications and Media world here at HPE.

Industry accolades

HPE wins Intel® Network Builders Winners’ Circle 2021 Titanium level award!

Each year, the Intel Network Builders Program recognizes industry leaders who are driving the next wave of innovation that sets the benchmark for industry standards.

The Intel Network Builders Program is dedicated to advancing networking technology. The program provides a variety of technical enablement tools such as hands-on support from Intel subject matter experts, access to virtual labs for testing and solution optimization, trainings, tools, and other resources.

HPE Pointnext Network Consulting Services declared ‘Market Leader’ by IDC

“As the networking market continues to evolve network consulting firms will continually refine their offerings to meet customer demand. The network will continue to be a strategic imperative, underpinning success in collaboration, cloud, 5G/IoT, and business agility. As such, participants in this market understand the importance the network plays in their customers' business objectives and strive to provide superior business, technology, and operational experiences …”

Hewlett Packard Enterprise Aims High for 5G Automation:  Forbes feature article by Will Townsend, Senior Analyst, Moor Insights and Strategy

Will observes that, unlike rivals Dell and Lenovo, the HPE telecom team has a deep bench of senior experts and is developing many of its platforms organically. Although we partner in emerging areas such as Open RAN, we work closely with our own Aruba colleagues to exploit the synergies of Wi-fi and 5G.

Proof of concept labs also play a pivotal role in delivering innovation to customers, with significant capabilities available at HPE’s 5G Lab in Fort Collins, Colorado.

HPE Recognized by Frost and Sullivan for Excellence in Best Practices 2021: “Enabling Technology Leadership, Global 5G Network Infrastructure”

Frost & Sullivan applied a rigorous analytical process to evaluate multiple nominees for each award category before determining their final award recipients. The process involved an evaluation of best practices across two dimensions for each nominated company.

“HPE supplies the “infrastructure for the infrastructure.” Essentially this means that HPE provides both the hardware that the telco cloud operates on, as well as the software that enables the cloud-based networks to function and be managed.”   

As a leader in open infrastructure solutions, HPE is uniquely positioned to help telcos hone their 5G strategy. HPE Telco Blueprints reduce complexity and risk with validated system designs tuned to deliver optimized carrier grade performance with no single point of failure. They ensure the carrier grade reliability of telco blueprints with both NEBS and ETSI certification testing. Plus, HPE silicon root of trust is built in to protect data throughout the hardware life cycle.

Additionally, HPE offers a set of key 3GPP-compliant 5G core network functions that are cloud native and based on a container and microservices-based architecture. HPE also offers a full suite of orchestration and management solutions which enables key 5G needs such as network slicing.

Growing a robust portfolio

Hewlett Packard Enterprise expands 5G portfolio with automated 5G management solution

In June of 2021, HPE announced a new software solution that added fully integrated and automated management to our existing 5G portfolio.

The solutions include HPE 5G Automated Assurance and a new 5G capability for HPE Service Director which simplifies the management of 5G networks while reducing deployment risks. The software is pre-integrated with HPE open 5G solutions, including the HPE 5G Core Stack, and leverages open source technologies.

Innovative Open RAN offering is the first solution to emerge from HPE’s newly created Communications Technology Group

In February, HPE announced the first solutions to emerge from the newly created Communications Technology Group, bringing together the unique IP that HPE offers across telco software, services and infrastructure.

The HPE orchestration platform brings automation and agility to the radio access network, enabling the commercial deployment of Open RAN at scale. The industry’s first Open RAN workload optimized server, the new HPE ProLiant DL110 Gen10 Plus is now generally available worldwide, and in advanced trials with a number of operators.

New cloud services transform and modernize the critical applications organizations rely on to run their business

Customers and partners across a range of industries, including Epic, Fidelity National Information Services, Lusis, Microsoft, SAP, and Splunk now adopting HPE GreenLake to deliver a cloud experience everywhere – with improved time-to-value, increased agility and lower costs.

Available as cloud services on premises, at the edge or in colocation centers, these services include managing electronic medical records, financial payments, risk management, Machine Learning Operations, SAP, Microsoft Azure Stack HCI and Microsoft SQL server, 5G Core for Telco, Epic, Splunk and more.

HPE Comms World 2021: 5G from Edge to Core 

HPE CommsWorld 2021 was held virtually in December of 2021, and featured the full breadth of HPE’s telecommunications solutions from the RAN to the 5G Core. Sessions explored different aspects of 5G such as Orchestration (edge and core), 5G core choices, and private 5G, as well as how to plan your transition from 4G to 5G.  Other topics covered included Intelligent Assurance, Fulfillment, Open RAN, ODIM, and the coexistence of Wi-Fi 6 with 5G – and more.

Industry News

ARK Multicasting builds nationwide broadcast internet network in the USA with Hewlett Packard Enterprise

ARK Multicasting, a leading television broadcaster, has selected HPE to power its next generation ATSC 3.0 broadcast internet network. ARK is leveraging edge-to-cloud infrastructure, software and services from HPE to move its broadcast stations from a physical environment to a virtualized one, which enables ARK to move data at high speeds to the consumer edge.

ARK’s new network could potentially help to bridge the connectivity gap in the rural United States. “Last mile connectivity remains a big problem, but by leveraging HPE, ARK can fix the connectivity gap and bridge the broadband divide,” said Josh Weiss, CEO, ARK Multicasting. “The power of datacasting can close the connectivity gap significantly faster and in a cost-efficient way.

Green G for telecom sustainability

Earlier this year, the NextG alliance announced the creation of the Green G working group, and nominated our own Marie-Paule Odini as the chairwoman. The objective of the NGA Green G working group is to position North America as the global leader in environmental sustainability in future generations of wireless technology or “Green G”.

Just a few weeks ago, they published the Green G: The Path Towards Sustainable 6G white paper, providing insights into the current initiatives employed across the ICT to address climate change and environmental sustainability. The report also identifies areas for improvement, describing a range of potential solutions that could be incorporated within next generation networks to further reduce energy consumption and to be more sustainable. 

Globe Telecom signs MoU with Hewlett Packard Enterprise for multi-access edge computing solution trial using 5G

Globe Telecom, the leading mobile network operator in the Philippines, will offer low latency cloud services at the edge of its network using HPE’s new Multi-access Edge Compute (MEC) solution.

They will be delivering the services to select users via a newly built Edge Incubation Lab, by moving data-intensive workloads such as artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning closer to customers for faster data processing and analysis. HPE enables this offering with a pre-integrated, telco-grade MEC solution capable of integrated management, service operation, and traffic control. The HPE MEC as-a-service solution is delivered through HPE GreenLake giving customers like Globe the ability to start small and have the flexibility to scale out to meet future requirements.

Ericsson: Leveraging HPE optimized edge compute with HPE ProLiant Servers

Ericsson Cloud RAN is designed to be cloud agnostic with supplementary cloud integration services that facilitate onboarding to the service provider’s cloud infrastructure of choice.

To deliver value and build on the foundation laid with Intel, Ericsson is also working with ecosystem partners, including industry-leading IT infrastructure vendors such as Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE). This collaboration brings additional flexibility to Cloud RAN deployments, as Ericsson customers will now also have an option to select HPE workload optimized edge compute based on HPE ProLiant servers and any cloud.

Plus… Learn more about key partner relationships in this thought-provoking blog that explores how trusted partners provide insights and solutions, and bring much needed expertise to 5G.

Looking ahead

As we reflect on the year 2021, it may have seemed at times like the challenges we collectively faced were insurmountable. The pandemic overshadowed almost all human enterprise. We experienced major supply chain disruptions, labor shortages, and increasing impacts from climate change. But these challenges also created opportunities to build upon a robust technology foundation that facilitates improved ways of conducting business, education, healthcare, and government, to name just a few.

Looking ahead, the evolving telecom and communications world – with innovative edge computing, 5G, Wi-Fi 6, Open RAN and faster internet connections – will continue to play an integral role in delivering reliable connections, with increased efficiency, and reduced carbon footprint – for our customers and partners.

We thank you for the opportunity to be a part of your team in 2021 and look forward to working with you in this brave new world. No matter what curve balls 2022 may throw, HPE will be there to help you catch, adapt, and thrive.

Kind regards,

Andy