Protecting the Telecom Network

Telecommunication networks are becoming more and more essential every day and, in the process, gaining new opportunities. These opportunities will drive new business growth and create exciting areas for revenue generation. However, as with all opportunities, challenges exist. And for communication service providers (CSPs), these challenges include cyber threats, increasing network decentralization, timing requirements, and more.

To help our customers meet these challenges, Dell EMC Ready Solution for VMware NFV brings together industry-leading technologies optimized for telecommunication networks, yet customizable for any unique need. This solution continues to offer new value with the latest release including newly integrated Data Protection capabilities for streamlined and trusted performance.

Fortifying your Data Protection Strategy with Dell EMC Data Protection Solutions

Cyberattacks, can have far-reaching effects resulting in downtime and data loss. Since CSPs are at the center of the modern transformation controlling and operating critical infrastructure, it is even more important to have a robust data protection strategy built around the principles of high availability to ensure service continuity. These trends and the continued evolution of cloud environments are causing CSPs to fortify their data protection strategy.

¹Dell Analysis, February 2020

Dell EMC’s data protection suite offers network administrators a simplified approach to control backup, recovery, and replication management with over 2.7 EB (exabytes) of data in the cloud. It is optimized for virtual environments, with a unique, client-side, global deduplication technology that eliminates redundant backup data before it is sent over the network and stored.

Designed for the unique requirements of CSPs, this data protection suite seamlessly integrates with VMware Cloud Director (vCD) through Dell EMC Data Protection Extension (DPE) for vCD. Dell EMC DPE for vCD provides unified end-user NFV infrastructure management. This facilitates tenant self-service access through vCD’s tenant user interface (UI), allowing for tenant-level policy configuration and setup of tenant repositories. Additionally, for those with VMware Integrated Openstack (VIO), we have also validated and documented the integration of VIO with Dell’s Data Protection Suite.

Dell EMC’s data protection suite includes both Avamar (source-based deduplication software) and Data Domain (target deduplication software) integrated through DD Boost (solution for optimized software interaction). These leading components provide fast, reliable, and flexible data protection that scales to the needs of the largest CSPs while allowing for expansion to the public cloud. Additionally, Dell EMC data protection suite provides encryption and file locking for data security, protecting critical infrastructure from cyber threats.

Key features of the data protection suite include:

  • VMware Cloud Director UI integration
  • Tenant self-service access
  • Client-side global deduplication
  • DD Boost enhanced backup speed
  • Multi-cloud environment
  • Encryption and file locking
  • Non-disruptive policy-based enforcement
  • CBT and FLR for efficient data restore

Dell EMC Ready Solution for VMware NFV Platform

With Dell’s powerful data protection suite integrated with Dell EMC’s VMware NFV solution, there has not been a better platform to position CSPs for success. Built using NFV best practices for disaggregation and validated for carrier-grade performance, this solution ensures the flexibility and capability to execute on strategies with complete peace of mind.

This integrated solution is built on top of leading Dell EMC hardware and VMware software, providing an exceptional NFV foundation. With a broad offering of components from Dell Technology, customization is made simple for a prescriptive and optimized network. Benefits include:

  • Enabled agility with peace of mind through validated and disaggregated infrastructure
  • Operate with performance and efficiency, leveraging ideal tools for assurance, automation, orchestration, and analytics
  • Stacked to win with a co-engineered solution built on top of leading Dell EMC assets and VMware software for NFV use cases
  • Investment protection with a carrier-grade solution meeting SLA requirement via features such as Long-life Intel® Xeon® processors in PowerEdge R-Series servers

What’s New?

Dell EMC reference architectures for VMware vCloud NFV are central to delivering the value of this solution. The most recent reference architecture, Dell EMC Ready Architecture for VMware vCloud NFV, includes the latest VMware release with vCloud Director 9.7.  This architecture facilitates a unified deployment from the core to edge with VMware’s vCloud Director plus data protection.

  • Enhanced data protection using Dell EMC Data Protection Extension, Avamar, and Data Domain
    • DPE Plugin seamlessly integrates Dell’s data protection capabilities with VMware through vCD UI
    • Up to 47% lower monthly cost of in-cloud data protection
    • Up to 1.5x faster backups on Day 1
    • Up to 3x faster incremental backups
  • Single integrated solution for network Edge and Core
    • Facilitating end-to-end deployment
    • Edge architecture designed for unique requirements
    • Core offload of edge site overhead
  • Based on vCloud NFV 3.2.1
    • vSphere performance and security improvements
    • Additional NUMA balancing feature
    • Edge-centric features
    • IPv6 support

Our reference architectures facilitate faster deployments, simplified management, and optimized performance. We are excited to be able to provide a single end-to-end solution for VMware Cloud NFV that includes data protection.

Dell Technologies is committed to offering telecommunication-optimized, modular, and open standards-based solutions to deliver infrastructure that is designed for CSP clouds and accelerates 5G monetization.

 

About the Author: Brian Russell

Brian Russell is the product manager of Dell EMC Ready Solution for VMware NFV Platform. Brian is responsible for driving and building Dell EMC’s integrated telecommunication solutions with VMware, evolving the better together story. Previously, Brian held a role in Dell’s Innovation and Planning Team where he led the evaluation of a next generation product initiative. Furthering his track record of innovation, Brian has experience at a breadth of technology businesses including a Rio Tinto, a leading global mining company, and IMSAR, a startup building and designing synthetic aperture radars. Brian graduated with a Master’s in Business Administration, Master’s in Manufacturing Engineering Technology, and a Bachelor’s in Electrical Engineering from Brigham Young University. While pursing those degrees, he focused in areas of product management, IoT, robotic automation with the goal of driving human progress through technology. In his free-time Brian enjoys taking road trips with his wife and going on runs with his puppy, Daphne.