As comms companies transform to New IP architectures, they're looking to transition their networks from special-purpose hardware and software to commodity components that look a lot like enterprise IT. Dell, a leader in enterprise IT, sees that transition as an opportunity to enter the comms market. And NFV is key to the strategy.

Unlike other vendors that are rolling out their own NFV software, Dell Technologies (Nasdaq: DELL) is sticking to its core business: providing platforms on which to deploy other vendors' software.

As traditional network equipment providers such as Huawei Technologies Co. Ltd. , Ericsson AB (Nasdaq: ERIC) and Nokia Corp. (NYSE: NOK)/Alcatel-Lucent (NYSE: ALU) move to virtual networking, they need to transition from proprietary hardware to standardized components. That's where Dell sees itself coming in -- as a long-standing provider of standardized servers and storage.

Dell sees itself providing the infrastructure for all the different directions of NFV -- the core, edge, RAN and other parts of the network -- including servers, storage, networking, element management and fabric management.

Dell's NFV strategy is an important part of Dell's overall comms networking push. "We see [comms] primarily as a greenfield opportunity for Dell to expand," Jeff Baher, Dell senior director, NFV strategy and marketing, tells Light Reading. "The carriers are making a significant architectural rethink. They're making it around sets of technology we have significant expertise in, especially as it takes on more cloud-like properties."

Baher adds, "There is an assumption that it's easy to run on an X86. But deploying 20 or 30 thousand servers isn't a trivial task. That is something we know. We're designed for hyper scale."

Figure 1: Top NFV Guy Jeffrey Baher, senior director, solutions marketing,
NFV & SDN Solutions, Dell

Dell provides data center optimization, including hardware, virtualization and platform software, and managed services. Dell's hardware can be modularized, containerized and air-cooled to optimize for space and energy efficiency and critical criteria at hyper scale, says Baher.

Dell's partners provide branded virtual network function (VNF), NFV infrastructure (NFVi) and virtualized infrastructure manager (VIM) software, running on Dell's platform.

"We're supplying, at the lower level, the converged infrastructure, operating systems and element management," Baher says.

The Dell NFV Platform, introduced in late 2014, bundles server hardware with enterprise SDN software to provide an integrated foundation for NFV. The platform includes Dell's Active Fabric Manager software, with an SDN Controller and Orchestrator on Intel Xeon PowerEdge servers. (See Dell Dips Toe in Carrier NFV Market.)

As part of Dell's networking platform strategy, the company introduced Operating System 10, a Linux networking operating system designed to disaggregate hardware, software and apps, and to pave the way for eventually converging compute, network and storage on a single infrastructure. NFV is one of the use cases for OS10, Baher says. (See Dell Sets Stage for Software-Defined Data Center.)

Find out more about network functions virtualization on Light Reading's NFV channel.

Dell partners with Nokia Corp. (NYSE: NOK) (formerly Alcatel-Lucent (NYSE: ALU)), cross-selling AlcaLu's CloudBand NFV on the Dell platform. (See Nokia & Alcatel-Lucent: What's Going On? and Nokia Gains Control of Alcatel-Lucent.)

Dell is also partnered with Red Hat Inc. (NYSE: RHT) and VMware Inc. (NYSE: VMW) for comms companies who "take a more radical, revolutionary approach, not looking to talk first with their incumbents," Baher says.

The partnerships go beyond just bundling, Baher says. "Anyone that's going to provide a common platform needs to understand the hardware and software and anything that runs on top of that. That's pretty important."

Next page: Potentially problematic partnership

Potentially problematic partnership
For example, Dell is working with Red Hat and VMware on improving installation, visibility, and automation of its NFV software on Dell hardware. And Dell and 6WIND are working to provide performance validation using standardized hardware and software. "There are a number of dependencies. We can't just say, hey, we've got servers, we're ready to go," Baher says.

At least one of those partnerships could prove problematic: when Dell's EMC Corp. (NYSE: EMC) acquisition goes through -- with its accompanying controlling interest in VMware -- customers who want a multivendor NFV solution might get concerned that Dell and VMware are too closely aligned. Dell and VMware's offerings are complementary; Dell provides the platform and VMware has NFV software that runs on that platform.

For now, at least, Dell CEO Michael Dell has assured customers it will keep VMware at arm's length.

Dell said in a statement posted to the company's community site in October: "Once the transaction closes, we plan to handle VMware the same way as EMC by keeping VMware independent, leaving VMware free to continue using its cash flow to invest in its business and to continue its committed relationships with its VMware Partner Network."

Dell's NFV strategy sounds great, but there's reason for skepticism: Dell hasn't disclosed any comms companies on board.

Baher is unperturbed. "Carriers aren't publicly announcing a lot around NFV. There are a lot of proof-of-concepts (PoCs). There are a few live that we're involved in. Those carriers haven't gone public with what they're doing, or the specific vendors they're using."

Dell says it's responded to more than 40 RFIs and RFPs, and has double-digit PoCs.

Dell's roots in NFV go back to the ambitious 2013 CloudNFV industry group whose goal was to develop an infrastructure to run VNFs in the cloud, rather than on virtualized servers. Dell took over leadership of that group in early 2014.

The account of what happened next depends on who you talk to. Dell's critics say the company allowed CloudNFV to wither on the vine. Dell said it carried the project through to successful conclusion -- an ETSI-sanctioned proof of concept (PoC) in partnership with Telefónica, Sprint and NFV vendors. CloudNFV taught Dell how to tune its equipment to run NFV software from partners. (See CloudNFV: Dell's Lost Opportunity?.)

Expanding from the IT side of the house to the network side is a common theme among enterprise vendors looking to get into the comms market. It's part of Dell's larger comms strategy, and it's core to VMware's comms strategy as well. We'll explore those two angles in upcoming articles looking at Dell's overall networking strategy.

Hewlett Packard Enterprise has embraced that plan too, although it's got problems in the comms market, as it has all but lost a lucrative NFV contract with Telefónica. HPE fumbled on a promise to deliver a multivendor implementation. (See Telefónica Ditches HPE as Virtualization Lead, Who Might Replace HPE at Telefónica?, and HPE Will 'Continue to Work With Telefónica' on Unica.)

Related post:

— Mitch Wagner, , West Coast Bureau Chief, Light Reading. Got a tip about SDN or NFV? Send it to [email protected].