Manish Singh, Dell Technologies & Doug Wolff, Dell Technologies | MWC Barcelona 2023

the Cube's live coverage is made possible by funding from Dell Technologies creating technologies that drive human progress welcome to the Fiera in Barcelona everybody this is thecube's coverage of mwc 23 day one of that coverage we have four days of wall-to-wall action going on as fed the place is going crazy I'm here with Dave Nicholson Lisa Martin is also in the house today's ecosystem day and we're really excited to have Manish Singh who's the CTO of the Telecom systems business unit at Dell Technologies he's joined by Doug Wolfe who's the head of strategy for the Telecom systems business unit Dale gents welcome thank you what a show I mean really the first major mwc or used to be Mobile World Congress since you guys launched your Telecom business you kind of did that sort of in the coven transition but really exciting obviously a huge huge venue to match the huge Market somebody's how did you guys get into this what did you see what was the overall thinking to get Dell into this business yeah well I mean just to start with you know if you look at the Telecom ecosystem today uh the service providers in particular they are looking for Network transformation driving mode disaggregation into their networks so that they can get better utilization of the infrastructure but then also get more agility more Cloud native characteristics onto their uh for their networks in particular and then further on it's important for them to really start to accelerate the pace of innovation on the networks itself to start more supply chain diversity that's one of the challenges that they've been having and so these they've been all these Market forces that have been really getting these service providers to really start to transform the way they have built the infrastructure in the past which was Legacy monolithic architect just more Cloud native disaggregated and from a Dell perspective you know that really gives us the permission to play to really given all the expertise on the work we have done in the IIT with all the ID transformations to leverage all that expertise and bring that to the service providers and really help them in accelerating their Network transformation so that's where the journey started we've been obviously ever since then working on expanding the product portfolio on our compute platforms to bring Telco great compute platforms with more capabilities and we can talk about that but then working with partners and building the ecosystem to again create this disaggregated and open ecosystem that will be more Cloud native and really meet the objective that the service providers are great thank you so so Doug the strategy obviously was to attack this Market as Manish said from an open standpoint that's sort of new territory it's like a little bit like the Wild Wild West so maybe you could double click on what Manish was saying from a from a strategy standpoint yes the telcos need to be more flexible they need to be more open but they also need this reliability piece so talk about that from a strategy standpoint of what you guys saw yeah absolutely as Manish mentioned you know Dell getting into open systems isn't something new you know Dell has been kind of playing in that world for years and years but the opportunity in Telecom that came was opening of the Rand the core Network The Edge all of these with 5G really created a wide opening for us so we started developing products and solutions you know built our first Telecom grade servers for openran over the last year and we're we'll talk about those at the show um but you know as Manish mentioned an open ecosystem is new to Telecom I've been in the Telecom business along with Manish for you know 25 plus years and this is a new thing that they're embarking on um so started with virtualization about five six years ago and now moving to Cloud native architectures on the core suddenly there's this need to have multiple parties partner really well share specifications and put that together for an operator to consume and I think that's just the start of really where all the challenges are and the opportunities that we see where where are we in this transition cycle when the average consumer hears 5G feels like it's been around for a long time because it was hyped beforehand yeah if you're talking about moving to an open infrastructure model from a proprietary closed model when is the opportunity for Dell to become part of that is it are there are there specific sites that have already transitioned to 5G therefore they've either made the decision to be open or not or are there places where 5G the 5G transition has taken place and they might then make a transition to open Rand right with 5G where are we in that cycle what does the opportunity look like I'll kind of take it from the topology of the operator and I'm sure Manisha will build on this but if I look back at the core started to get virtualized you know back around 2015-16 with some of the lead operators like ATT Etc um so Dell has been partnering with those operators for some years so it really it's happening on the core but it's moving with 5G to more of a cloud-like architecture number one and number two they're going Beyond just virtualizing the network um you know they previously had used openstack and most of them are migrating to more of a cloud native architecture that Manish mentioned and that is a bit different in terms of there's more software vendors in that ecosystem because the software is disaggregated also um so Dell's been playing in the core for a number of years but we brought out new Solutions we've announced at the show for the core and the parts that are really starting that transition of maybe where the core was back in 2015 is on the Rand and on the edge in particular because nfv kind of predated the ascendancy of cloud right so it really didn't have the impact that people had hoped and there's some when you look back because it's not same wine new bottle as the open systems movement there are a lot of similarities but you know you mentioned cloud cloud native you really didn't have back in the 90s true engineered systems you didn't really have ai that you know to speak of at the sort of volume the data that we have so many from a from a cto's perspective how are you attacking some of those differences in bringing that to Market yeah I mean I I think you touched on some very important points there so first of all the Ducks point a lot of this transformation started in the core right and as the technology Evolution progress the opportunities opened up it has now come into the edge and the radio Access Network as well in particular with open wrap and so when we talk about the disaggregation of the you know infrastructure from the software itself and an open ecosystem this now starts to create the opportunity to accelerate Innovation and I really want to pick up on the point that you said on AI for example Ai and machine learning bring a whole new set of capabilities and opportunities for these service providers to drive better optimization better performance better sustainability and Energy Efficiency on their infrastructure on and on and on but to really tap into these Technologies they really need to open that up to third parties implementation solutions that are coming up and again the end objective remains to accelerate that Innovation now that said all these things need to be brought together right and delivered and deployed in the network without any degradation in the kpis and actually improving the performance on different vectors right so this is what the current state of play is and with disaggregation armor definitely a believer that all these new technologies including AI machine learning and there's a whole area host area of problems that can be solved and attacked and are actually getting attacked by applying Ai and machine learning onto these open obviously is good nobody's ever going to you know argue that open is a bad thing it's like democracy is a good thing right at least amongst us and so but but the the the the Iran had the open run has to be as reliable and performant right as these these closed Networks or maybe not maybe it doesn't have to be identical this has to be close enough in order for that Tipping Point to occur is that a fair summarization what are you guys hearing from carriers in terms of their willingness to sort of put their toe in the water and and what can we expect in terms of the maturity model of open ran and adoption right so I I mean I think on on performance that that's a tough one I think um The Operators will demand performance and you've seen experiments you've really seen more of the Greenfield operators kind of launch okay open ran or vran type Solutions so they're going to disrupt yeah they're going to disrupt yeah and there's flexibility in an open Rand architecture also for 5G that they that they're interested in and I think the Brownfield operators are too but let's say maybe the Greenfield jumped first in terms of doing that from a mass deployment perspective um but I still think that it's going to be critical to meet very similar slas and end user performance and you know I think that's where you know maturity of that model is what's required I think Brownfield operators are conservative in terms of you know going with something they know but the opportunities and the benefits of that architecture and building new flexible potentially cost advantage over over time Solutions that's what the where the real interest is going forward and new services that you can introduce much more quickly the interesting thing about Dell to me you don't compete with the carriers the the public Cloud vendors though the carriers are concerned about them sort of doing an end run on them so you provide a a potential partnership for the carriers that's non-threatening right because you're you're an arms dealer you're selling hardware and software right but but how do you see that because we're heard in the keynote today one of the the Telco I think it was as chairman of telefonica said yeah cloud guys can't do this alone you know they need you know this massive you know build out and so so what do you think about that in terms of your relationship with the carriers not being threatening I mean versus say potentially the cloud guys who are also your partners I understand it's really interesting Dynamic isn't it yeah I mean I I think you know I mean the way I look at it the carriers actually need someone like Dell to really come in who can bring in the right capabilities the right infrastructure but also bring in the ecosystem together and deliver a performant solution that they can deploy and that they can trust number one number two to your point on cloud I mean from a Dell perspective you know we announced our Dell Telecom multi-cloud foundation and as part of that last year in September we announced what we call as the Dell Telecom infrastructure blocks the first one we announced with Wind River and this is think of it as a the info hardware and the cash layer all pre-integrated with a lot of automation around it Factory integrated you know delivered customers in an integrated model with all the licenses everything and so it starts to solve the day zero day one day two integration deployment and then life cycle management uh for them so to broaden the discussion our view is it's a multi-cloud world the future is multi-cloud where you can have different clouds which can be optimized for different workloads so for example while our work at Wind River initially was very focused on virtualization of the radio Access Network we just announced our infrastructure block with red hat which is very much targeted and optimized for whole network and Edge right so you know there are different workloads it will require different capabilities also and so you know again we're bringing those things to the to these service providers to again bring those Cloud characteristics and and Cloud native architecture for the internet and it's going to be hybrid yeah yeah and you just sit on something you said Cloud characteristics if you look at this through the lens of kind of the general world of I.T sometimes when people hear the word cloud they immediately leap to the idea that it's a hyperscale cloud provider in this scenario we're talking about radio towers that have intelligence living on them and physically at the base and so the cloud characteristics that you're delivering might be living physically in these remote locations all over the place is that correct yeah I mean yeah I mean that that's true that will definitely happen over time but I think I think we've seen the hyperscalers enter um you know public Cloud providers enter at the edge and they're they're dabbling maybe with private um but I think the public ran is another further challenge I think that maybe a little bit down the road for them so I think that is a different characteristic that you're talking about managing the macro ran environment yeah you find me just add one more perspective of this hello oh no I mean again the hyperscale cloud right I mean that world's been great when you can centralize a lot of compute capability and and and you can then start to you know do workload aggregation and use the infrastructure more efficient when it comes to Telecom it is inherently a distributed architecture where you have access you talked about radio access you're poor and it is inherently distributed because it has to provide the coverage and capacity and so you know it does require different kind of capabilities when you're going out and about and this is where I was talking about things like you know we just talked we just uh I've been working on our bare metal orchestration right this is what we're bringing is a capability where you can actually have distributed infrastructure you can deploy you can actually manage do life cycle Management in a distributed multi-cloud form so it does require you know different set of capabilities that need to be enabled yeah some some when talking about Cloud would argue that it's always been Information Technology it always will be information technology and especially as what we might refer to as public cloud or hyperscale Cloud providers are delivering things essentially on premises like well is that cloud because it feels like some of those players are going to be delivering physical infrastructure outside of their own data centers in order to address this it seems the nature the nature of the Beast is that some of these things need to be distributed so it seems perfectly situated for Dell that's why you guys are both at Dell now and not working for their Telecom places right exactly exactly yes it's definitely an exciting space it's transformed the networks are under transformation and I do think our Bell is very well positioned to to really help the customers the service providers in accelerating their transformation Journeys with an open ecosystem you've got the brand and the breadth and the resources to actually attract an ecosystem but I wonder if you could sort of take us through your strategy of of ecosystem the challenges that you've seen in developing that ecosystem and what the vision is that ultimately what's the outcome going to be of that open ecosystem yeah I can start maybe just to give you the big picture right I mean the big picture is disaggregation with performance right TCO models to the service providers right and it starts at the infrastructure layer Builds on bringing these Cloud capabilities the the cast layer right bringing the right accelerators all of this request to pull the ecosystem so give you an example on the infrastructure you know Telco great servers like xr8000 with sapphire Intel Sapphire the new Intel processors that we've just announced and extended array of servers we use a Telco grade short depth Etc you know the Telco great characteristics working with Partners like Marvel Qualcomm bringing in the accelerators in there that's important to again drive that performance and optimize for the TCO working then with Partners like Wind River Red Hat Etc to bring in the cast capability so you can start to see how this ecosystem starts to build up and then very recently we announced our private 5G solution with the airspan and expedo on the core side so bringing those workloads together similarly we have our open range solution we announced with Fujitsu so it's it's open it's disaggregated but bringing all these together and one of the last things I would say is you know to make all this happen and make all of these we've also been putting together our hotel our open Telecom ecosystem lab which is very much gear really gives this open ecosystem a playground where they can come in and do all that heavy lifting which is anyways required to do the integration optimization and more so put all these capabilities in place for the end goal the end Vision again is that cloud native disaggregated infrastructure that starts to innovate at the speed of software and scales of the speed of cloud and this is different than the 90s you didn't have you didn't have something like Hotel back then you know you didn't have the the developer ecosystem that you have today because the on top of everything that you just said when these are new workloads and new applications that are going to be developed right anything you'd add to what Manish said yeah I mean as Manish said I I think adding to the infrastructure layers which are you know critical for us to to help integrate right because we kind of took the a vertical Telco stack and we've disaggregated it and it's gotten a little bit more complex so our Solutions Dell technology infrastructure block and our our lab infrastructure with otel helps put those pieces together but without the software players in this you know that's what we really do I think in otel and that's just starting to grow so integrating with those software providers with that integration is something that the operators need so we fill a gap there in terms of either providing engineer Solutions so they can readily build on or actually bringing in that software provider and I think that's what you're going to see more from us going forward is just extending that ecosystem even further more software players effectively in thinking about uh o ran are they is it possible to have the the low latency the high performance the reliability capabilities that carriers are used to and the flexibility or can you sort of prioritize one over the other from a go to market and rollout standpoint and and optimize one maybe get a foothold in the market how do you see that balance well the answer is absolutely yes you can have both we are on that Journey we're on that Journey this is where all these things I was talking about in terms of the right kind of accelerators right kind of capabilities on the infrastructure obviously retargeting the software there are certain changes Etc that need to be done on the software itself to make it more more Cloud native and then building all the surrounding capabilities around the cicd pipeline and all where it's not just Day Zero or day one that you're doing the cloud-like life cycle management of this infrastructure but the answer to your point yes absolutely it's it's possible the technology is there and the ecosystem is coming together and that's the direction now are there challenges absolutely there are challenges but but directionally that's the direction the industry is moving to I guess my question releases do they have to go in lockstep because I would argue that the public Cloud when it first came out was nearly as functional as what I could get from my own data center in terms of recovery you know backup and Recovery is a perfect example and it took you know a decade plus to get there but it was the flexibility and the openness in the developer Affinity the programmability that that attracted people do you see Oran following a similar path or does it my question is does it have to have that Carrier class reliability everything on day one does it have to have everything yeah I mean I I would say I you know like again the Greenfield operators I think were willing to a little bit more experimentation um I I think the operators Brownfield operators that have existing you know deployments they're going to want to be closer but I think there's room for Innovation here and clear clearly you know Manish came from from meta and we've been very involved with tip we're very involved with the oran Alliance and as Manish mentioned with all those accelerators that we're working with on our infrastructure that is a space that we're trying to help move the ball forward um so I think you're seeing deployments from mainstream operators but it's maybe not in you know downtown New York deployment they're more rural deployment so that's getting out you know kind of your question is there's maybe a little bit more flexibility there they get to experiment with the technology and the flexibility and then I think it will start to and that's where the disruption is going to come from I think where was the first place you could get reliable 4K streaming of video content it wasn't ABC CBS NBC yeah it was YouTube right so is it possible that when you say Greenfield are a lot of those going to be what we refer to as private 5G networks where someone may set up a private 5G Network that has more functions and capabilities than the public network yeah is that that's exactly where I was going is that you know that's why you're seeing us getting very active in 5G solutions that Manish mentioned with you know expedo and airspan there's more of those that we haven't publicly announced so you'll I think you'll be seeing more announcements from us um but that is really you know a new opportunity and there's Spectrum there also right I mean there's public and private Spectrum we plan to work directly with the operators and do it in their Spectrum when needed but we also have solutions that will do it um you know on on a non-public Spectrum so let's close out oh good you have something to add we're just going to add one more point to to Doug's point right yes if you look on the private 5G and the End customer it's the Enterprise right and they're they're not a service provider they're not a carrier they're more used to deploying you know Enterprise infrastructure maintaining managing that so you know private 5G especially with this open ecosystem and with uh with all the Open Line capabilities it naturally tends to you know uh lend itself very well to meet those requirements that the Enterprise would have and people should not not think of private 5G as a sort of a replacement for for Wi-Fi right it's it's to to deal with those you know intense situations that could afford the additional cost but absolutely require the reliability and the performance and you know never go down type of scenario right and low latency is usually the the primary characteristics you know for things like industry 4.0 manufacturing requirements those are tough slas they're just they're different than the operator slas for coverage and you know cell performance they're now you know five nine type characteristics but on a manufacturing floor that's why we don't use Wi-Fi on the cube to broadcast why wouldn't it replace Wi-Fi over time I mean I you know I we I still have a home phone number that's hard hardwired to align but it goes to a voicemail we don't even enhance everything's more for it yeah I think well unless the cost can come down but I think the Wi-Fi is is is is is is flexible it's cheap it's it's kind of perfect for that technology and it works great great for now for now but but you wouldn't want it in those situations that you're arguing that maybe I'm saying eventually why put a SIM in a device I don't know you know but why not yeah I mean you know and Dell offers you know from our laptop you know our client side we do offer Wi-Fi we do offer 4G and 5G Solutions and I think those you know it's a it's a volume and scale issue yeah right the cost structure you're talking about come to our booth and see the connected laptop oh yeah well let's let's close on that why don't you guys talk a little bit about what you're going on with the show I did go by the booth you got a whole big lineup of servers you got some you know cool devices going on so give us the rundown and and you know let's end with the takeaways here yeah the simple rundown a broad range of new power Edge servers very broad range addressing core Edge ran optimized for those with all the different kind of acceleration capabilities you can see that you can see infrastructure blocks these are with Wind River with red hat you can see Hotel the open Telecom ecosystem lab where all that playground the integration the real world the real sausage makings happening and then you will see some interesting Solutions uh in terms of co-creation that we are doing right so so you will see all of that and not to not not to forget the connected laptops yeah yeah cool yeah and um we mentioned it before but just to add on I think um you know for private 5G you know we've announced a few offers here at the show with Partners um so with expedo and um airspan in particular and I think you know I just want to emphasize the Partnerships that we're doing you know we're doing some you know fundamental integration on infrastructure bare metal and different options for The Operators to get engineered systems but building on that ecosystem is really the move to Cloud native is where Dell is trying to get in front of and we're offering Solutions and a much larger ecosystem to go after it all right Manish and Doug thanks for coming on the program it's great to have the awesome discussion thank you for having us all right Dave vellante for Dave Nicholson and Lisa Martin where we're seeing the disaggregate disaggregation of the Telco Network into open ecosystems with integration from companies like Dell and others keep it right there for the Cube's coverage of mwc 23. we'll be right back

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2023-03-06 10:50

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