HPE and Intel are working with open source partners such as Red Hat to create a 5G distributed infrastructure management tool that could potentially help telecommunications firms get past the difficulty of installing 5G system into sites that hold infrastructure belonging to multiple vendors.
The project will be donated to the Linux Foundation, with release scheduled for later in Q2 2020. It will be accessible via: www.linuxfoundation.org.
A major difference between 5G and previous generations of connectivity is the levels of software integration. So far, 5G standards have been designed to work with open software platforms that can be built using off the shelf commercial products. As more and more services, systems and enterprises start to use distributed technologies such as multi-access edge computing and cloud-native network functions, the need for a robust management standard is emerging.
HPE’s Open Distributed Infrastructure Management (ODIM) initiative aims to create this standard and simplify the management of large scale distributed physical hardware deployments. Working with Intel and supported by industry players such as AMI, Apstra, Red Hat, Tech Mahindra and World Wide Technology to create infrastructure management code that will be provided as open source to the tech community.
Dan Rodriguez, Corporate VP and GM of Intel’s Network Platforms Group commented: “Infrastructure management and orchestration can benefit from common open source building blocks including APIs and data models.”
Open Distributed Infrastructure Management
One of the key issues that the project is trying to address is that management tools and code for the physical infrastructure of data centres does not scale easily and can struggle when it comes to multi-vendor deployments.
The ODIM will create a management framework that recreates infrastructure elements across all working sites so that the automation of resources is simplified across multiple locations.
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Importantly the open source management tools provided by the initiative could potentially help telecommunications companies in the middle of rolling out 5G networks in numerous different sites easily integrate the systems into environments that contain the IT infrastructure of multiple vendors.
Claus Pedersen, VP, Telco Infrastructure Solutions at HPE commented that: “5G and Edge Computing industry initiatives will require large-scale and geographically distributed multi-vendor infrastructure deployments that can only be cost effectively realized with infrastructure-as-code automation. The Open Distributed Infrastructure Management initiative tackles network scalability challenges and the costs associated with vendor lock-in by enabling multi-vendor infrastructure deployments, the centralized deployment of standards-based fault and configuration management, and the aggregation of resource-specific status information.”
