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Intel and Ericsson partner on software-defined infrastructure for 5G, cloud and NFV

Ericsson and Intel announced a partnership to develop a software and hardware management platform for NFV, distributed cloud and 5G.

The plan is to combine Ericsson's software-defined infrastructure (SDI) management software with Intel's Rack Scale Design across the length of a multiyear contract.

"Our infrastructure manageability collaboration with Ericsson will help communications service providers remove deployment barriers, reduce costs, and deliver new 5G and edge services with cloudlike speed on a flexible, programmable and intelligent network," said Intel's Sandra Rivera, senior vice president, network platform group, in a prepared statement.

Ericsson and Intel are co-developing a platform that expands the reach of the cloud to the hardware infrastructure layer. The end result, according to the two companies, is a faster time to market for service providers along with reducing the total cost of software. It will also be fully backward compatible for current Ericsson customers.

The companies will align the development efforts of Ericsson SDI Manager software with Intel Rack Scale Design, which will also include advanced management capabilities. The joint effort will allow operators to leverage multi-vendor hardware options, Ericsson’s end-to-end software solutions and Intel’s architectural designs.

“We have a long history of successful collaboration with Intel," said Ericsson's Lars Mårtensson, head of cloud and NFV infrastructure, Business Area Digital Services, in a prepared statement. Ericsson. "This new collaboration will focus on software in addition to hardware and we see it be truly transformative for service providers’ ability to successfully deploy open cloud and NFV infrastructure, from centralized datacenters to the edge."

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The two companies plan to demonstrate Ericsson's SDI Manager at Mobile World Congress later this month in Barcelona.