SAN JOSE — Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE) announced Tuesday a new portfolio of as-a-service offerings, called HPE GreenLake, designed to help cellcos rapidly deploy open 5G networks.
The HPE GreenLake edge-to-cloud, platform-as-a-service strategy leverages cloud-native technologies from HPE and its Aruba subsidiary for carriers to easily build and deploy 5G networks, and seamlessly integrate with Wi-Fi 6 networks, says the news release. Built on open and interoperable platforms, combined with carrier-grade infrastructure and modular software components, HPE says its new portfolio of offerings will allow telcos to incorporate more automation, become more agile, and deploy new 5G services faster across the telco core, the telco edge and into the enterprise.
The new HPE 5G Core Stack is an open, cloud-native, container-based network software stack that provides telco customers with the core network capabilities required to rapidly deliver new 5G services to subscribers and enterprise customers, the company says. The HPE 5G Core Stack will be available as an integrated software and hardware platform, based on validated HPE telco core and edge blueprints, and supported within HPE GreenLake, says the news release.
At the telco edge, HPE offers a ruggedized general-purpose platform which lets virtual radio access networks (vRAN) and multi-access edge computing (MEC). These purpose-built offerings from HPE provide telcos with an IT service environment at the cellular network edge, says the company.
At the enterprise edge, HPE is offering Aruba Central services, including Aruba Air Pass Wi-Fi/5G roaming and Aruba Air Slice service-level agreement management. These services aim to help telcos extend the 5G footprint to the enterprise edge by allowing seamless access to Wi-Fi-connected users and IoT devices. Using Passpoint technology and the new Aruba Air Pass service, cellular subscribers can securely and automatically roam onto participating Aruba enterprise customers Wi-Fi networks, HPE explains in the news release.
The HPE GreenLake infrastructure is to be delivered as-a-service and is available via a pay-as-you-go, managed services model that enables telcos to reduce upfront capital investments and reduce risk by leveraging specialized and proven telco and enterprise edge hardware and software.
“Openness is essential to the evolutionary nature of 5G and with HPE 5G Core Stack telcos can reduce operational costs, deploy features faster and keep themselves open to multiple networks and technologies while avoiding being locked-in to a single vendor approach,” said Phil Mottram, vice-president and general manager of the communications and media solutions business unit at HPE, in the release. “HPE has one of the broadest 5G portfolios in the market and is uniquely positioned to help telcos build an open multi-vendor 5G core, optimize the edge with vRAN, and deliver connectivity and new compute services to the enterprise using MEC and Wi-Fi 6.”
The full HPE 5G Core Stack will be available globally in the second half of 2020 through HPE GreenLake as-a-service. HPE’s telco optimized edge and core blueprints, and the telco edge optimized platform HPE Edgeline EL8000 are available today, directly or through HPE GreenLake. Aruba Air Pass and Aruba Air Slice are generally available today.
For more information, please visit www.hpe.com.
