In infrastructure news this week, Ericsson and Reliance Communications are expanding their relationship, as are several network equipment providers. Alcatel-Lucent and Hewlett-Packard are integrating one another’s products into their portfolios, while Cisco and IBM will integrate their data center solutions.
Ericsson to manage Reliance Communications’ network
Ericsson has signed a seven-year agreement to manage Reliance Communications’ wireless and wireline networks across India. This agreement covers the carrier’s 2G/3G network, as well as 150,000 kilometers of fiber. Reliance has more than 118 million customers and is offering converged voice, data and video in several locations. Ericsson’s role as network manager took effect Dec. 1.
This represents the first pan-Indian managed-services agreement for Ericsson, which manages networks serving more than a billion subscribers worldwide. The company already has an agreement with Reliance and will now extend its footprint nationwide.
Alcatel-Lucent expands partnership with HP
Alcatel-Lucent and Hewlett-Packard said they will be expanding their alliance. HP is adding some Alcatel-Lucent carrier-grade routers and select optical products to its product portfolio. These two companies have been working together since 2009.
“HP and Alcatel-Lucent’s expanded alliance demonstrates our deep joint commitment to help large organizations and service providers transform and disrupt their respective industries and markets,” said Antonio Neri, SVP and GM of HP’s enterprise group. “We do this by taking each other’s best-in-class flagship products from our respective IT and networking portfolios, to deliver a unique set of data center and network solutions that reduce complexity, lower OPEX and boost agility to accelerate innovation of new products and services.”
Cisco partners with IBM
Cisco says it will integrate its UCS integrated infrastructure with the IBM Storwize storage system. The network-equipment giant will optimize its VeraStack solution for IBM business applications over time.
Cisco says that CIOs are increasingly interested in integrated systems in which the full stack of data center technologies is combined into a pre-tested and supported system designed to operate and be managed as a whole.
