Ericsson and Intel to develop next-generation 5G platform

Ericsson and Intel have started a multi-year collaboration to align ongoing development efforts in software-defined infrastructure (SDI), distributed cloud, and 5G. The platform will aim to deliver ‘a new level of cloudlike agility, transparency and efficiency required for Network Functions Virtualisation (NFV), distributed cloud, and 5G’. This hardware management platform, which extends the agility of the cloud to the hardware infrastructure layer, will help speed time-to-market, maximise utilisation, and reduce total cost of ownership. As part of this partnership, Ericsson and Intel will unite the Ericsson SDI Manager software and Intel RSD reference software while maintaining full backward compatibility for current customers. Lars Mårtensson, Head of cloud and NFV infrastructure, business area digital services at Ericsson, said: “This new collaboration will focus on software in addition to hardware and we see it to be truly transformative for service providers’ ability to successfully deploy open cloud and NFV infrastructure, from centralised datacentres to the edge. Intel’s and Ericsson’s joint effort significantly strengthens the competitiveness and roadmap of the Ericsson Software Defined Infrastructure offering.”