Samsung and VMWare are to collaborate on an extended 5G partnership, which will help telcos accelerate the rollout of their 5G networks across the globe.

The partnership will see VMWare optimise Samsung’s portfolio of products from Core to Edge to RAN for both containerised network functions (CNFs) and virtualised network functions (VNFs), using VMware Telco Cloud Platform.

“With innovative and open 5G networks beginning to transform the landscape, Samsung sees the value in delivering carrier-grade solutions with VMware that help CSPs easily embrace cloud native technology and efficiently deliver our network functions and services across their 5G networks with automation,” said Wonil Roh, senior vice president and head of Product Strategy and Networks Business at Samsung Electronics

The extended partnership represents a continuation of the pairs existing working relationship.

As part of the partnership, the companies have been working together at Samsung’s lab to optimise and accelerate the readiness of Samsung’s various VNFs and CNFs, such as vRAN, 5G Core, MEC, Management, and Analytics, with the VMware Telco Cloud Platform.

“The infrastructure supporting 5G will depend on virtualised and containerised network functions delivered from software-defined telco and edge cloud platforms,” said Shekar Ayyar, executive vice president and general manager, Telco and Edge Cloud Business Unit, VMware.

“We are thrilled to be working with Samsung to deliver carrier-grade solutions that leverage the VMware Telco Cloud portfolio to help CSPs seize this 5G moment and transform themselves into leading technology innovators.”

The managed service provider (MSP) market is extremely competitive and fraught with challenges. MSPs need to offer competitive pricing to make their offerings attractive to customers, but at the same time require the agility to develop and deliver solutions that support the customer journey into the cloud. MSPs also need to meet and exceed service level agreements (SLAs) to maintain their customer base. They also need to avoid vendor lock-in, which may isolate potential customers, simplify their solution stack to streamline management and operations, and ensure their technology is always up to date. Achieving all of this can be impossible without the right foundation in place, which is where software-defined storage (SDS) comes in.

Standardising hardware is the key

SDS is the ideal supporting platform to help MSPs build and deliver solutions and easily manage and operate them. By decoupling hardware and software, SDS allows MSPs to take advantage of their choice of server technology and server architecture. This ensures a vendor-agnostic approach, while at the same time enabling MSPs to standardise on their hardware, using commodity servers, cloud architecture or a combination of the two.

By unifying block, object and file for hypervisors, containers, backup and cloud workloads, the result is a scale-out, resilient and distributed architecture that maximises availability and protects against hardware failure. Essentially, SDS brings significant simplicity into the framework for enhanced predictability in an elastic solution that can scale to thousands of nodes as demand increases, without disrupting service.

The ultimate goal is to establish a fabric that can support a variety of workloads, including virtualisation, containers and backup, and meet today’s data infrastructure challenges through a single domain.

Ideal for MSPs

The backbone of SDS is highly supportive of a multi-tenancy environment and simplifies management of the technology stack that goes with it, regardless of the storage or workloads that are being run. SDS also supports all providers, ensuring there is no vendor lock-in, giving ultimate flexibility in the choice of hardware, development and deployment options.

A single management and presentation layer not only simplifies complexity, it also collapses storage silos into a single management interface to eliminate mass data fragmentation. By deploying a software-defined layer on top of commoditised hardware, across various clusters including virtualised, bare metal, containers and the cloud, a truly agile infrastructure can be created. This also mitigates the risk of technology refreshes, which can be absorbed without creating disruption or downtime.

Virtual disks deliver a utility storage framework on the back end, for granular provisioning of volumes with enterprise storage functionality. This elastic infrastructure eliminates downtime across the spectrum. It also further delivers on agility by automating management of the underlying hardware and infrastructure, removing this from day-to-day administrative tasks.

Focus on customers, not tin

Using SDS, MSPs can solve new infrastructure challenges in a distributed way, enabling seamless cloud integration and adoption, supporting the hybrid cloud journey and allowing for enterprise data protection through data distribution.

SDS provides storage for virtual environments, seamlessly integrates with various container orchestrators, and serves as a single backup storage target, regardless of which backup software solution is in use. This improves efficiency, allowing MSPs to extend their service offerings easily, scale without performance degradation and support their clients’ multi-cloud strategy with persistent, high-availability storage.

MSPs are able to maximise their total cost of ownership, simplicity and scale, which lends itself to multiple use cases. From agile container footprints to micro-services and virtualisation, MSPs are able to drive a single data centre model across regions that provides absolute uptime and high availability. SDS essentially transforms commodity hardware into an elastic, resilient, modern storage solution that allows MSPs to focus on customers and application sets, rather than on the underlying hardware needed to deliver services.

VMware has unveiled plans to enhance adoption of next-generation technologies in Singapore through a pilot training program designed to deepen workforce specialisations levels.

Under the banner of Getting Future Ready, the eight-week program is available to VMware customers and partners enrolled in the SGUnited Traineeship program, with the aim of offering “structured learning paths” towards emerging cloud native job roles and opportunities.

“The vibrancy and strength of Singapore’s innovation economy, along with its deep pool of tech talent, serve as a powerful testament to the country’s Smart Nation ambitions,” said Adrian Hia, country manager of Singapore at VMware.

“As organisations continue to adapt, respond and accelerate their businesses in this new digital paradigm, VMware is committed to leveraging our industry-leading technologies and expertise to up-skill and enable a new generation of tech talents, so they can drive Singapore’s economy forward in its next chapter of growth.”

The program – endorsed by DBS Bank and M1 among others – will offer up to 1000 traineeship opportunities to Singapore-based companies, comprising of a mix of “instructor-led and self-paced training sessions” conducted in-person and online as part of VMware Learning. In addition to learning and engaging with industry specialists, trainees will also have access to “hackathons, hands-on labs and gamification” offerings during the program.

DBS is committed to doing our part to build a strong pipeline of talent in Singapore equipped with the right skills for the new digital economy,” added Jimmy Ng, group CIO at DBS. “We are pleased to now partner with VMware in this initiative to equip our people with cloud-native skills.

“DBS will complement VMware’s training with hands on experience in managing DBS’ private cloud, from engineering a resilient active-active cloud platform, to automating cloud operations at scale. Cloud skills are highly relevant as DBS powers ahead with our digital transformation journey, and contributes to Singapore’s aspiration to be a Smart Nation.”

Upon completion of the program, trainees will undergo a “capstone certification event” in which users will apply key learnings from the course, alongside being awarded with industry-recognised certifications such as VMware Certified Technical Associate (VCTA).

This new VCTA credential will validate the skills and knowledge required by candidates performing operational tasks within a virtualised infrastructure, in areas across multi-cloud operations, networking, security and device management.

Singapore’s innovation ecosystem is going through immerse shift in how modern applications are being built, run and managed to meet fast-changing customer demands,” said Manjot Singh Mann, CEO of M1.

“Our partnership with VMware underscores our strong commitment to support enterprises on their business innovation journeys. In addition, VMware’s training programme will also help to strengthen our competencies, enhancing our ability to tap on cutting-edge technologies to drive greater outcomes for organisations in Singapore.”