Nokia enters telecoms data center space with AirFrame

Nokia today announced the launch of 5G ready Nokia AirFrame Cloud servers and switches for telecom operators’ data centers.

Nokia, which will be acquiring rival Alcatel-Lucent, will be aiming for data center of telecoms and not enterprises with the latest launch. This indicates that Nokia will not be targeting the enterprise business of Cisco, Juniper Networks, HP, Huawei, etc. But Nokia will compete with them in the telecom space in a bigger way.

Phil Twist, head of Portfolio Marketing at Nokia Networks, told TelecomLead.com: “Nokia AirFrame, our innovation-driven data center services, will offer five times improvement in signal processing to telecoms. The end result will be better customer experience to mobile subscribers.”

Nokia Networks did not share specific details of cost benefits from Nokia AirFrame to telecoms. It seems that Nokia will not be playing in the pricing front.

Nokia AirFrame will be available as pre-integrated racks with ultra-dense servers, high performance switches and software defined storage.

Nokia AirFrame
The development expands the reach of Nokia Networks’ telecom cloud business. It also builds the foundation for 5G deployments and provides better performance in the core and radio domains, said Nokia.

Nokia said that this is the first offering that combines the benefits of cloud computing technologies with the stringent requirements of the core and radio in the telecoms world.

The company has already done pilot projects with global telecom operators and the result is encouraging for Nokia to go for a global launch from today.

Nokia Networks has invested in advancing the data center hardware technology. To advance its solutions, Nokia Networks has opened a dedicated R&D facility for data center technology development.

It enables telecom operators to implement NFV strategy and expand into new business models, such as renting data center capacity for customers’ IT applications.

Sandra Rivera, vice president and general manager, Network Platforms Group, Intel, said: “We believe that combining Intel’s processors and virtualization technologies with Nokia Networks’ knowledge of the telecommunications market will accelerate adoption for cloud technologies deployed by leading operators worldwide.”

Baburajan K
[email protected]