Lenovo has launched an ambitious plan to develop integrated solutions for the telecommunications industry that provide the backbone for rich mobile content, 5G networks and IoT workloads.
The company aims to help operators build out next-generation data centers using open source technologies to address the growing demand for agile, cost-effective and flexible architectures.
As part of this initiative, announced at the Red Hat Summit, the company unveiled plans for Open Platform@Lenovo (OP@L), which will be powered by Red Hat’s software stack for network function virtualization (NFV) and run on hardened, OCP-compliant infrastructure.
Leveraging OP@L, Lenovo plans to advance open NFV architectures that can be customized and are highly secure to address the demanding needs of service providers.
To advance its plans for the telecommunications industry, Lenovo is joining the Open Platform for NFV (OPNFV) project as a Platinum member. OPNFV is a carrier-grade, integrated Open Source platform that is spawning advanced solutions and services using NFV. As a Platinum member, Lenovo will hold seats on the project’s Board and Technical Steering Committee.
Lenovo’s offerings leverage Red Hat, Linux, OpenStack and OPNFV technologies, among others. The company already is a member of Open Compute Platform (OCP), and its work within OPNFV will build upon this foundation.
As part of its efforts, Lenovo also plans to work with Red Hat to develop a certified solution stack based on Red Hat’s NFV Platform, built on Red Hat OpenStack Platform.
The integration of Red Hat NFV platform with Lenovo’s OP@L is the latest development in an expanding strategic collaboration between the companies, which was announced late last year.
The two companies are collaborating to develop and deliver open and flexible solutions for service provider clients, as well as those in other industries. Lenovo already offers Red Hat Enterprise Linux, Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization and CloudForms software within its portfolio.