>> Announcer: "theCUBE's" live coverage is made possible by funding from Dell Technologies, creating technologies that drive human progress. (upbeat music) >> Good evening, everyone. Live from Barcelona, Spain, it's "theCUBE". We are at Mobile World, MWC, excuse me, '23. New name this year. I'm Lisa Martin with Dave Vellante. Dave, we have had some great conversations. This is only day one of four days of coverage from "theCUBE" but one of the things that we've been talking about is disaggregation. You've wrote about it in your breaking analysis. We've been talking about it. Today is a big thing that's happening. We're going to be talking about that next. >> Yeah, open ecosystems require integration. Integration requires certification. And so, you got to have labs. We're going to talk about that and what value that brings to the community. >> Right. Please welcome Tibor Fabry-Asztalos, senior vice president of telecom systems and product engineering at Dell. >> Hi. >> And back to "theCUBE" after a couple of hours, Gautam Bhagra, vice president of partnerships at Dell. Guys, great to have you here. >> I love to be here. Thank you. >> Great to be here. >> So, day one, I'm sure lots of conversations, lots of meetings, lots of jet lag that we're all trying to get over. Talk about, Gautam, we'll start with you. Talk about the disaggregation era. What it is intended to support? What is it intended to enable? >> Yeah, so I mean, I think to be honest with you, Lisa, we spoke about this earlier also, like the whole vision with the disaggregation is to make sure our telco providers can take the benefits of having the innovation that comes along with it, right? So currently, we all know they're tied into like lock systems, which kind of constricts them in going after this whole innovative space. So, our hope is by working with our operators and our partners, we can help make that disaggregation journey a lot easier and work on some of these challenges, and make it easier for the telcos to innovate and consolidate going forward. So, we're working very closely and we talked about the community this morning. We're working very closely with Tibor and his team from an engineering perspective to help build those solutions with our partners and we're excited about the announcements we made this morning. >> When you hear challenges from this ecosystem, can you stack rank 'em? What are you hearing? Kind of what's top of mind? And so, the top three, if you would. >> Some of the challenges are just to define moving from a closed system and open system, just to making sure that the acceptance of that to see what's the value proposition is for an open system and then for the carriers to see the path going from a closed system to an open system. Of course, at the end, people realize the value at the end and speed of innovation that you're going to get all the new technologies and new features, functionality you get in an open system. But then the challenge comes with it, how you actually integrate those and then validate them, and you are to deploy them. So in a sense, that's the opportunity and also some of the challenge along the way. And that's where, as Gautam said, that's where we are also looking at playing the key role with the OTEL lab, the Open Telecom Ecosystem Lab, where we take these pieces of the open ecosystem and have combined them, validate them, and provide the pipeline to the customer. Pre-integration and then full integration into the production network. >> Those challenges, I presume, vary whether you're talking to a greenfield network operator versus somebody who's got a 40, 50 year history, a hundred-year history in the business, right? I mean migration is a big issue for them, right? Whereas the greenfield, we heard from DISH earlier, they want to drive innovation so they might be willing to sacrifice some other areas. So, is that a fair summarization and what are you hearing? >> [Tibor and Gautam] Yeah. >> Absolutely it is. I mean, that's where you see that DISH being kind of a leader in the space, as they were deploying in greenfield, they defined what the open ecosystem should look like, defined all the components of it, how you integrate them, validate them, and they were able to, well, go through it and deploy it. To your point, for an open, closed systems, as how you actually start transforming the existing network into the open one, that's going to go to a different process, right? You need to figure out how these new open systems can interrupt and work together with existing networks. So, that's one likely some of those carriers will start in an isolated area and grow from there. Deploy an open system in a rural area, for example, and then build from there. >> So, what a bank would do is they say, "Okay, we're going to write in our own abstraction layer." >> Gautam: Yeah. >> Right? "Using microservices, we're going to connect to the cloud. And we're going to, you know, put maybe some lower risk applications in the cloud first and then we're going to create our own cloud." Is there a similar dynamic here? >> Yeah, I mean, so I think you're spot on, right? Like, I think one of the things that we are seeing with the telco operators that we've spoken to is they're very risk averse. >> Yep. >> Right, they have very strong SLA requirements. They cannot go down even for a second. So, what that basically means is the innovation aspect is constrained by the risks that they perceive on any changes that you want to make on the architecture. So, the question that comes up is how do we make it easier for them to not worry about the bare minimum requirements of making sure the network's running and working while thinking about the new innovative technologies and solutions you want to build on the start. So, back to your bank example, nine years ago, no one in a bank even was thinking about like applications that will run on the cloud. Like for them, it was like a side project. They'll try and test something, see if it works, and then they'll think about cloud in the future, right? But now, core applications on banks are actually being built on public cloud. I think we see the same happening with the telco operators as well. Right now, they're understanding the move from a closed ecosystem to an open ecosystem. They understand the value proposition. On the core side, it's already happening a lot. And I think they are slowly moving there and that's where I think Tibor and team have been doing a great job working with our customers to make the transition happen. >> But there are so many permutations. >> Right. >> And integration points. How is Dell addressing that across the ecosystem? >> So, to give you an example, we talked about OTEL, which is our brand new, kind of 13,000 square feet lab that we kind of inaugurated last year based in Round Rock, Texas. >> Dave: Open Telecom. >> Dave and Tibor: Ecosystem Lab. >> Correct, great. And so, as part of that, that's a physical lab but more importantly, that's kind of a community where partners, customers come together to actually, and collaborate and work on these solutions. And as part of this, we also develop what we call the SIP, or Solution Integration Platform, to enable exactly what you just said. Making sure that we have a platform that actually can take all these various components, validate them individually, combine them, and then provide a DevOps and GitOps model, how you actually combine them, provide the BOM or SBOM, and then push that to pre-production and deployments for our customers. So, that's part of the challenge as we talked earlier. And that's how Dell and we are looking at actually enabling this basically, the validation of this disaggregated wall. >> Oh. >> Sorry, I just wanted to- >> Go ahead. >> just going to add one more point, right? So, when we look at the partners that we are working with as well in the OTEL and there are three ways we are working with them. At the bare minimum, we want to make sure that solution will run on the Dell infrastructure and the hardware, right? So, we have the self-certification process. We had a lot of good uptake on it and we are seeing a lot more come in. In fact, I had a check-in with "theCUBE" this morning in our side and it's more than a hundred plus partners already interested in going through that. Awesome. Then we have other places where we work on with partners to build reference architectures together, right? So, we want some sort of validated solution that will work together that we can take to the market. And then we also have engineered solutions that we are building with partners like the infrastructure block offering that we have taken where it's all pre-packaged, pre-built by Dell, working very closely with our partners. So, the telcos don't have to worry about deployment, integration, and everything else that comes along. >> And I presume the security supply chain is part of that- >> Yes. >> bill of materials- >> Absolutely. >> you just described. >> Yeah. >> Exactly. >> And that would include all those levels, the engineered systems, the reference architectures as well? And how do you decide like candidates, we can't do it all, right? So, it's the big markets get the engineered system, is that right? How do you adjudicate there? >> Yeah, so I mean, I think there are a couple of angles to look at it, right? I think the first and foremost is where we see the biggest demand is coming from the customers in terms of the stack they already have and where they have the pain points. >> Dave: Okay. >> Right, so this is why we are working with Red Hat and Wind River, as an example, because they are in most of the deployments that we are aware of with the customers and where we see an opportunity for Dell to partner with these partners. I think we are seeing a lot of new players also coming up the stack. And as they come up the stack and we find opportunities to co-build and co-innovate, absolutely we'll be building joint solutions with them as well. >> Where are you on, from a partnership perspective, on the strategic vision? You mentioned a number of things that have already been accomplished, quite a few. But from your journey perspective on that strategy, where are you? >> Yeah, so it's a really good question. I think we really want to be the partner of choice for all technology and services company within the telecom space. We're looking to drive the transformation in the network area, right? So, that's the vision that we have in the telecom system business from a partnership side. We have created some really good strategic partnerships with key providers, with independent software vendors, the network equipment providers. We're having some really good, strategic conversations with them. You've heard some of the announcement come out today, the work we are doing with Nokia, with Samsung, the Red Hat announcement, the Wind River, and so on and so forth. And there's a lot more in the pipeline. But more importantly, we want to grow the impact of the ecosystem. So, that's why we are launching the partner community today as well to make that happen. >> How does the lab work? Who has access to it? Can I self-certify? If I can self-certify, how do you make sure that I'm following the rules, all of the stuff- >> Sure. >> that you would- >> Absolutely. >> expect. >> So yes, you can self-certify, that's Gautam just mentioned. We already had quite a few ISVs go through that self-certification. And then there's also, there's reference architecture that's being done and other engineered solutions that we talked about earlier. And the lab is set up in a way that when needed, test lines can be isolated. So, only certain set of partners have access to it. So, it's made up in a way that enables collaborations. At the same times, it kind of enables a certain set of customers and partners working together without having challenges of having a completely open system. >> Okay, but so, if I want to do something with you guys and let's say, I am a candidate for an engineered system, so how does it work? Somebody's got to buy the equipment, right? He's got to ship it, right? There's a lot of Dell equipment involved. >> Tibor: That's correct. >> There's other third-party CapEx software, et cetera. So, you fund that, the partners fund that, it's a hybrid funding model, how does that all get done? >> So today, for obviously, we work closely with those partners. The engineered solutions we've developed so far, we've been funding it largely and as you said, is Dell infrastructure plus the cast layers and the cloud players we work with. So, we actually put those in place. We funded them, of course, with participation from them. And that's being done through those labs. >> Okay, great. So, you guys are providing that benefit to the ecosystem. Writing checks, bringing engineering talent to the table. >> Gautam: Yeah. >> Okay. >> And at the same time, I mean, it's a partnership at the end of the day, right? So, depending on the kind of partnership we are. So, if you're an ISV, it's fairly simple. Come into our labs. You don't have to worry about the infrastructure. >> Sure. >> Run it all in our labs and you're good. If you're a hardware vendor or a NEP, network equipment provider, that's where it gets interesting where they need to send us stuff, we need to send them stuff. And usually, like Tibor mentioned, it's a joint collaboration. We all put in our chips on the table and we work together. >> So, when you're having conversations with prospective partners, obviously different types of partners, Gautam, that you just talked about, what's in it for them? What's the value proposition? What does this community- >> Gautam: Yeah. >> give them from a competitive advantage standpoint? >> Yeah, so I mean there are, so the way I think about it, right? There are three things that Dell is bringing to the table. The first one is our experience and expertise on doing this transformation within the enterprise space and the learnings we have from there that we're bringing to telco now, right? So, Dell's been working with enterprises for many, many years. We are one of the big providers there. We all know what transformation enterprise went through. >> Tibor: Telco transformation, IT transformation. >> Exactly. And that's the experience we have, which we're bringing to telco. The second one is our investment, both from a go-to market side as well as the way we are working with our sales and marketing, and so on and so forth, with the engineering side. And finally, I think, and this for me is the best one, is Dell is a very partner-centric organization. >> Lisa: Yes. >> Our strategy is built around partnerships. So, that's the other piece that we bring to the table. >> Where are the labs? Oh, go ahead. >> And what's one more note on that, and also, we are talking about the engineered solutions. There's also the supply chain then because that's a basically appliance and then that goes to Dell's supply chain, which is best in class. >> Dave: And where are the labs? How many are there? >> So Round Rock, Texas is the biggest one, the 13,000 square feet. We also have extension to it. We just announced opening one in Cork for the EME market to making sure that we can cover any regulatory challenges. But also, basically any test lines that we need to cover that have latency challenges. That's why we want to make sure that we have labs in other areas as well. >> And the go-to market, is it an overlay organization, a dedicated organization? >> Yeah, so it's a bit of both as you know. But yeah, in the telecom business unit, we have a dedicated sales organization as well as an alliance organization working very closely with product and engineering to take it to market. >> Given the strength and the breadth of the partner program in the community, based on this is only day one of MWC but is there anything that you've heard today that excites you where telecom is going and where Dell and its ecosystem is going and really burgeoning? >> Oh, I've had I don't know how many meetings since 6:00 AM this morning. So, it's been an amazing event and we're just having so many great conversations with partners, our customers. And I think a lot of today is all about figuring out what our strategy and our vision is, where is each side going and what the overlap is. I think the end result's going to be follow up conversations with a lot of these partners that we are working with or will be working with soon. And then thinking about, do we build engineered solutions together? Do we go validated route? Like we going to figure that out. But I mean, for me, this is like the perfect place to come and share your vision and strategy and understand what we are trying to solve for. >> To me, what's been interesting that all the interactions and discussions are about how to get to or render open ecosystem. That's great to see that the focus is on how to make it work versus still questioning it and I think that's pretty good. >> Well, you guys launched this business I think during the pandemic, right? >> Yes. >> Yeah, that's right. >> So I mean, you could do a lot over Zoom, but as we were talking about earlier, having the face-to-face interaction, there's no replacement for it. The 6:00 AM meetings versus the 30 minute zoom calls and your body language, I mean, you learn so much that you can take away from these events. >> Absolutely. Seeing someone in 3D is so different and it's good to build that relationship and rapport as well with the folks. >> I agree. >> It is. There's so much value in the hallway conversations that you can't have over Zoom. So, I guess last question for you as we head into to day two, what are some of the things that we can be on the lookout for from Dell and its ecosystem? >> Hmm. >> Interesting. (Tibor chuckling) >> I mean, all our announcements are out. I think what you can look at for us to really be leading in this segment, taking a leadership role, and continuously looking at how we can really enable the open ecosystem and how we can provide more value there, and how we can see how we can lead in this space. >> How you can lead in this space. >> Yeah, I mean for me, I mean, day two is like, I have a lot more meetings in day two than day one so I don't know if it's like people flying in today or what, but it's amazing to just meet the partners and customers. >> So, that theme of velocity for you is going to keep going. >> Oh, it's not stopping. (Lisa laughing) That's for sure. We are excited about it. >> Well, thank you for carving out some time to talk to with us on "theCUBE" about the partner program, the open ecosystem and the commitment to growing that and enabling partners to really differentiate their services with Dell. We appreciate it. >> We appreciate it as well. >> Thank you very much. >> Thank you for having us. >> Thanks. >> Our pleasure. For our guests and for Dave Vellante, I'm Lisa Martin. You're watching "theCUBE" live in Barcelona, Spain at MWC '23. Day one of our coverage. Be right back with our final guest of the day so stick around. (upbeat music continues)

(light music) >> Narrator: theCUBE's live coverage is made possible by funding from Dell Technologies. Creating technologies that drive human progress. (upbeat music) >> Welcome back to Spain everyone. Lisa Martin here with theCUBE Dave Vellante, my co-host for the next four days. We're live in Barcelona, covering MWC23. This is only day one, but I'll tell you the theme of this conference this year is velocity. And I don't know about you Dave, but this day is flying by already. This is ecosystem day. We're going to have a great discussion on the ecosystem next. >> Well we're seeing the disaggregation of the hardened telco stack, and that necessitates an ecosystem open- we're going to talk about Open RAN, we've been talking about even leading up to the show. It's a critical technology enabler and it's compulsory to have an ecosystem to support that. >> Absolutely compulsory. We've got two guests here joining us, Gautam Bhagra, Vice President partnerships at Dell, and Scott Walker, Vice President of global Telco ecosystem at Wind River. Guys, welcome to the program. >> Nice to be here. >> Thanks For having us. >> Thanks for having us. >> So you've got some news, this is day one of the conference, there's some news, Gautam, and let's start with you, unpack it. >> Yeah, well there's a lot of news, as you know, on Dell World. One of the things we are very excited to announce today is the launch of the Open Telecom Ecosystems Community. I think Dave, as you mentioned, getting into an Open RAN world is a challenge. And we know some of the challenges that our customers face. To help solve for those challenges, Dell wants to work with like-minded partners and customers to build innovative solutions, and join go-to-market. So we are launching that today. Wind River is one of our flagship partners for that, and I'm excited to be here to talk about that as well. >> Can you guys talk a little bit about the partnership, maybe a little bit about Wind River so the audience gets that context? >> Sure, absolutely, and the theme of the show, Velocity, is what this partnership is all about. We create velocity for operators if they want to adopt Open RAN, right? We simplify it. Wind River as a company has been around for 40 years. We were part of Intel at one point, and now we're independent, owned by a company called Aptiv. And with that we get another round of investment to help continue our acceleration into this market. So, the Dell partnership is about, like I said, velocity, accelerating the adoption. When we talk to operators, they have told us there are many roadblocks that they face, right? Like systems integration, operating at scale. 'Cause when you buy a traditional radio access network solution from a single supplier, it's very easy. It's works, it's been tested. When you break these components apart and disaggregate 'em, as we talked about David, it creates integration points and support issues, right? And what Dell and Wind River have done together is created a cloud infrastructure solution that could host a variety of RAN workloads, and essentially create a two layer cake. What we're, overall, what we're trying to do is create a traditional RAN experience, with the innovation agility and flexibility of Open RAN. And that's really what this partnership does. >> So these work, this workload innovation is interesting to me because you've got now developers, you know, the, you know, what's the telco developer look like, you know, is to be defined, right? I mean it's like this white sheet of paper that can create all this innovation. And to do that, you've got to have, as I said earlier, an ecosystem. But you've got now, I'm interested in your Open RAN agenda and how you see that sort of maturity model taking place. 'Cause today, you got disruptors that are going to lean right in say "Hey, yeah, that's great." The traditional carriers, they have to have a, you know, they have to migrate, they have to have a hybrid world. We know that takes time. So what's that look like in the marketplace today? >> Yeah, so I mean, I can start, right? So from a Dell's perspective, what we see in the market is yes, there is a drive towards, everyone understands the benefits of being open, right? There's the agility piece, the innovation piece. That's a no-brainer. The question is how do we get there? And I think that's where partnerships become critical to get there, right? So we've been working with partners like Wind River to build solutions that make it easier for customers to start adopting some of the foundational elements of an open network. The, one of the purposes in the agenda of building this community is to bring like-minded developers, like you said like we want those guys to come and work with the customers to create new solutions, and come up with something creative, which no one's even thought about, that accelerates your option even quicker, right? So that's exactly what we want to do as well. And that's one of the reasons why we launched the community. >> Yeah, and what we find with a lot of carriers, they are used to buying, like I said, traditional RAN solutions which are provided from a single provider like Erickson or Nokia and others, right? And we break this apart, and you cloudify that network infrastructure, there's usually a skills gap we see at the operator level, right? And so from a developer standpoint, they struggle with having the expertise in order to execute on that. Wind River helps them, working with companies like Dell, simplify that bottom portion of the stack, the infrastructure stack. So, and we lifecycle manage it, we test- we're continually testing it, and integrating it, so that the operator doesn't have to do that. In addition to that, wind River also has a history and legacy of working with different RAN vendors, both disruptors like Mavenir and Parallel Wireless, as well as traditional RAN providers like Samsung, Erickson, and others soon to be announced. So what we're doing on the northbound side is making it easy by integrating that, and on the southbound side with Dell, so that again, instead of four or five solutions that you need to put together, it's simply two. >> And you think about today how we- how you consume telco services are like there's these fixed blocks of services that you can buy, that has to change. It's more like the, the app stores. It's got to be an open marketplace, and that's where the innovation's going to come in, you know, from the developers, you know, top down maybe. I don't know, how do you see that maturity model evolving? People want to know how long it's going to take. So many questions, when will Open RAN be as reliable. Does it even have to be? You know, so many interesting dynamics going on. >> Yeah, and I think that's something we at Dell are also trying to find out, right? So we have been doing a lot of good work here to help our customers move in that direction. The work with Dish is an example of that. But I think we do understand the challenges as well in terms of getting, adopting the technologies, and adopting the innovation that's being driven by Open. So one of the agendas that we have as a company this year is to work with the community to drive this a lot further, right? We want to have customers adopt the technology more broadly with the tier one, tier two telcos globally. And our sales organizations are going to be working together with Wind Rivers to figure out who's the right set of customers to have these conversations with, so we can drop, drive, start driving this agenda a lot quicker than what we've seen historically. >> And where are you having those customer conversations? Is that at the operator level, is it higher, is it both? >> Well, all operators are deploying 5G in preparation for 6G, right? And we're all looking for those killer use cases which will drive top line revenue and not just make it a TCO discussion. And that starts at a very basic level today by doing things like integrating with Juniper, for their cloud router. So instead of at the far edge cell site, having a separate device that's doing the routing function, right? We take that and we cloudify that application, run it on the same server that's hosting the RAN applications, so you eliminate a device and reduce TCO. Now with Aptiv, which is primarily known as an automotive company, we're having lots of conversations, including with Dell and Intel and others about vehicle to vehicle communication, vehicle to anything communication. And although that's a little bit futuristic, there are shorter term use cases that, like, vehicle to vehicle accident avoidance, which are going to be much nearer term than autonomous driving, for example, which will help drive traffic and new revenue streams for operators. >> So, oh, that's, wow. So many other things (Scott laughs) that's just opened up there too. But I want to come back to, sort of, the Open RAN adoption. And I think you're right, there's a lot of questions that that still have to be determined. But my question is this, based on your knowledge so far does it have to be as hardened and reliable, obviously has to be low latency as existing networks, or can flexibility, like the cloud when it first came out, wasn't better than enterprise IT, it was just more flexible and faster, and you could rent it. And, is there a similar dynamic here where it doesn't have to replicate the hardened stack, it can bring in new benefits that drive adoption, what are your thoughts on that? >> Well there's a couple of things on that, because Wind River, as you know, where our legacy and history is in embedded devices like F-15 fighter jets, right? Or the Mars Rover or the James Web telescope, all run Wind River software. So, we know about can't fail ultra reliable systems, and operators are not letting us off the hook whatsoever. It has to be as hardened and locked down, as secure as a traditional RAN environment. Otherwise they will (indistinct). >> That's table stakes. >> That's table stakes that gets us there. And when River, with our legacy and history, and having operator experience running live commercial networks with a disaggregated stack in the tens of thousands of nodes, understand what this is like because they're running live commercial traffic with live customers. So we can't fail, right? And with that, they want their cake and eat it too, right? Which is, I want ultra reliable, I want what I have today, but I want the agility and flexibility to onboard third party apps. Like for example, this JCNR, this Juniper Cloud-Native Router. You cannot do something as simple as that on a traditional RAN Appliance. In an open ecosystem you can take that workload and onboard it because it is an open ecosystem, and that's really one of the true benefits. >> So they want the mainframe, but they want (Scott laughs) the flexibility of the developer cloud, right? >> That's right. >> They want their, have their cake eat it too and not gain weight. (group laughs) >> Yeah I mean David, I come from the public cloud world. >> We all don't want to do that. >> I used to work with a public cloud company, and nine years ago, public cloud was in the same stage, where you would go to a bank, and they would be like, we don't trust the cloud. It's not secure, it's not safe. It was the digital natives that adopted it, and that that drove the industry forward, right? And that's where the enterprises that realized that they're losing business because of all these innovative new companies that came out. That's what I saw over the last nine years in the cloud space. I think in the telco space also, something similar might happen, right? So a lot of this, I mean a lot of the new age telcos are understanding the value, are looking to innovate are adopting the open technologies, but there's still some inertia and hesitancy, for the reasons as Scott mentioned, to go there so quickly. So we just have to work through and balance between both sides. >> Yeah, well with that said, if there's still some inertia, but there's a theme of velocity, how do you help organizations balance that so they trust evolving? >> Yeah, and I think this is where our solution, like infrastructure block, is a foundational pillar to make that happen, right? So if we can take away the concerns that the organizations have in terms of security, reliability from the fundamental elements that build their infrastructure, by working with partners like Wind River, but Dell takes the ownership end-to-end to make sure that service works and we have those telco grade SLAs, then the telcos can start focusing on what's next. The applications and the customer services on the top. >> Customer service customer experience. >> You know, that's an interesting point Gautam brings up, too, because support is an issue too. We all talk about when you break these things apart, it creates integration points that you need to manage, right? But there's also, so the support aspect of it. So imagine if you will, you had one vendor, you have an outage, you call that one vendor, one necktie to choke, right, for accountability for the network. Now you have four or five vendors that you have to work. You get a lot of finger pointing. So at least at the infrastructure layer, right? Dell takes first call support for both the hardware infrastructure and the Wind River cloud infrastructure for both. And we are training and spinning them up to support, but we're always behind them of course as well. >> Can you give us a favorite customer example of- that really articulates the value of the partnership and the technologies that it's delivering to customers? >> Well, Infra Block- >> (indistinct) >> Is quite new, and we do have our first customer which is LG U plus, which was announced yesterday. Out of Korea, small customer, but a very important one. Okay, and I think they saw the value of the integrated system. They don't have the (indistinct) expertise and they're leveraging Dell and Wind River in order to make that happen. But I always also say historically before this new offering was Vodafone, right? Vodafone is a leader in Europe in terms of Open RAN, been very- Yago and Paco have been very vocal about what they're doing in Open RAN, and Dell and Wind River have been there with them every step of the way. And that's what I would say, kind of, led up to where we are today. We learned from engagements like Vodafone and I think KDDI as well. And it got us where we are today and understanding what the operators need and what the impediments are. And this directly addresses that. >> Those are two very different examples. You were talking about TCO before. I mean, so the earlier example is, that's an example to me of a disruptor. They'll take some chances, you know, maybe not as focused on TCO, of course they're concerned about it. Vodafone I would think very concerned about TCO. But I'm inferring from your comments that you're trying to get the industry, you're trying to check the TCO box, get there. And then move on to higher levels of value monetization. The TCO is going to come down to how many humans it takes to run the network, is it not, is that- >> Well a lot of, okay- >> Or is it devices- >> So the big one now, particularly with Vodafone, is energy cost, right? >> Of course, greening the network. >> Two-thirds of the energy consumption in RAN is the the Radio Access Network. Okay, the OPEX, right? So any reductions, even if they're 5% or 10%, can save tens or hundreds of millions of dollars. So we do things creatively with Dell to understand if there's a lot of traffic at the cell site and if it's not, we will change the C state or P state of the server, which basically spins it down, so it's not consuming power. But that's just at the infrastructure layer. Where this gets really powerful is working with the RAN vendors like Samsung and Ericson and others, and taking data from the traffic information there, applying algorithms to that in AI to shut it down and spin it back up as needed. 'Cause the idea is you don't want that thing powered up if there's no traffic on it. >> Well there's a sustainability, ESG, benefit to that, right? >> Yes. >> And, and it's very compute intensive. >> A hundred percent. >> Which is great for Dell. But at the same time, if you're not able to manage that power consumption, the whole thing fails. I mean it's, because there's going to be so much data, and such a intense requirement. So this is a huge issue. Okay, so Scott, you're saying that in the TCO equation, a big chunk is energy consumption? >> On the OPEX piece. Now there's also the CapEx, right? And Open RAN solutions are now, what we've heard from our customers today, are they're roughly at parity. 'Cause you can do things like repurpose servers after the useful life for a lower demand application which helps the TCO, right? Then you have situations like Juniper, where you can take, now software that runs on the same device, eliminating at a whole other device at the cell site. So we're not just taking a server and software point of view, we're taking a whole cell site point of view as it relates to both CapEx and OPEX. >> And then once that infrastructure it really gets adopted, that's when the innovation occurs. The ecosystem comes in. Developers now start to think of new applications that we haven't thought of yet. >> Gautam: Exactly. >> And that's where, that's going to force the traditional carriers to respond. They're responding, but they're doing so very carefully right now, it's understandable why. >> Yeah, and I think you're already seeing some news in the, I mean Nokia's announcement yesterday with the rebranding, et cetera. That's all positive momentum in my opinion, right? >> What'd you think of the logo? >> I love the logo. >> I liked it too. (group laughs) >> It was beautiful. >> I thought it was good. You had the connectivity down below, You need pipes, right? >> Exactly. >> But you had this sort of cool letters, and then the the pink horizon or pinkish, it was like (Scott laughs) endless opportunity. It was good, I thought it was well thought out. >> Exactly. >> Well, you pick up on an interesting point there, and what we're seeing, like advanced carriers like Dish, who has one of the true Open RAN networks, publishing APIs for programmers to build in their 5G network as part of the application. But we're also seeing the network equipment providers also enable carriers do that, 'cause carriers historically have not been advanced in that way. So there is a real recognition that in order for these networks to monetize new use cases, they need to be programmable, and they need to publish standard APIs, so you can access the 5G network capabilities through software. >> Yeah, and the problem from the carriers, there's not enough APIs that the carriers have produced yet. So that's where the ecosystem comes in, is going to >> A hundred percent >> I think there's eight APIs that are published out of the traditional carriers, which is, I mean there's got to be 8,000 for a marketplace. So that's where the open ecosystem really has the advantage. >> That's right. >> That's right. >> That's right. >> Yeah. >> So it all makes sense on paper, now you just, you got a lot of work to do. >> We got to deliver. Yeah, we launched it today. We got to get some like-minded partners and customers to come together. You'll start seeing results coming out of this hopefully soon, and we'll talk more about it over time. >> Dave: Great Awesome, thanks for sharing with us. >> Excellent. Guys, thank you for sharing, stopping by, sharing what's going on with Dell and Wind River, and why the opportunity's in it for customers and the technological evolution. We appreciate it, you'll have to come back, give us an update. >> Our pleasure, thanks for having us. (Group talks over each other) >> All right, thanks guys >> Appreciate it. >> For our guests and for Dave Vellante, I'm Lisa Martin. You're watching theCUBE, Live from MWC23 in Barcelona. theCUBE is the leader in live tech coverage. (upbeat music)

>> Announcer: From around the globe, it's theCUBE. With digital coverage of AWS Public Sector Partner Awards. Brought to you by Amazon Web Services. >> Hi, I'm Stu Miniman, and welcome back to theCUBE's coverage of the AWS Public Sector Partner Awards. We're going to be digging in. This award is for the most customer obsessed migration and happy to welcome to the program two first time guests coming to us from India. First of all, from the partner with Tech Mahindra, we have Gautam Chatterjee. He is the vice president with Tech Mahindra, who's the winner of the award, and they've brought along their customer for this, that is Satyendra Gupta, who is the director of the CPWD, which is the Central Public Works Department, part of the government of India. Gentlemen, thank you so much for joining us. >> Thank you. >> All right, if we could, let's start with just a quick summary of what your organizations do. Gautam, we'll start with you. Tech Mahindra, I think most of our audience, you know, should be aware, you know, large, very well known organization. Congratulations to you and the team on the win. Tell us what your part of Tech Mahindra does. >> Okay. So, Tech Mahindra is a five billion dollar organization, and it's a part of Mahindra and Mahindra. Which is approximately at $22 billion evaluation worldwide. So, Tech Mahindra is primarily into IT services and consulting services for the information technology and information technology related works across the globe. We have got multiple offices, almost around 90 locations across the country, and we have gotten to operations worldwide in different verticals and different geographies. So, as a part of Tech Mahindra, I manage the central government that is the public sector business for Tech Mahindra, based out of New Delhi, in India. And we handle the complete large public sector organizations and different ministries which are coming into the government of India. >> Wonderful! Satyendra, obviously public works, relatively self explanatory, but, tell us a little bit about your organization, your roll, and, if you could, introduce the project that your group worked with Tech Mahindra on. >> Okay, so, Central Public Works Department is a 165 year old organization that was aided by large technology. In 1854 was when this organization started working. The primary responsibility of this organization is to build the consistent works of the government of India. Primarily in the buildings sector. We see predominantly, Tech Mahindra will see predominantly you aiding the department, is that technical add-on to the government of India regarding these concepts and matters. Right, so, this department is spread across the country, from north, and in the south, Kerala. And from Gujarat in the west to another place in the east. This department has departments across the country. We had to use, with all tech with all the top companies we had thought (indistinct) is that only the building but we created and perfected from the government of India, like, the stadiums. That is not so many, wanted something that would have been very useful regarding the tsunami. Tsunami came so the government, the projects we picked up would be constantly small houses that we'd have to give it to. And CPWD, using the info technology since long, but we have it all along (indistinct) in value. Now, last year, it had been decided that we would implement the IT system in the CPWD very hard softwares and will be implementing a single use form, and everything will be connected to each other, too. So, this is what the internet for part of the implementation is. As far as myself is concerned, I am in charge of the implementation of this year for the system in the department. From it's inception to the end, and detailing the whole of the process until all the onboarding of the Tech Mahindra, and the implementation of. And then, from there after waiting a minute to, in the department to make it adaptable, we tell everybody. These are the roles that I have. >> All right, Gautam, if you could, migration's obviously a big part of what I expect Tech Mahindra is helping customers with. Help frame up, you know, the services that you're doing, talk a little bit, if you could, the underlying AWS component of it, and, you know, specifically, give us a little bit about Tech Mahindra's role in the public works project that we were just talking about. >> Okay. So, coming to the relationship and the journey which you have started for the CPWD project, it's around a year, year and a half work when you have started interacting with CPWD. By understanding their business challenges and the business department, which is primarily automating the whole processes. And there are multiple applications, multiple processes which they wanted to automate. Now, definitely once their automation comes into the picture, you have to take place the complete automation of the applications, the complete automations of the infrastructure, and the complete automations of the UI part of it. That is the user perceptions, user interface, right? So, all three has been covered by this company to automation process. As a part of the system integrations business, our main objective is to plan and bring the respective OEMs, who are the best of the great, our technology providers, to bring them to utilize those platforms, and to utilize those course applications, so that, by utilizing those technologies and applications, we can automate the complete process and provide the complete drill down management view to CPWD for their inter-operations and application. In the process of doing that, what we have done, we have brought in SAP as an ace for HANA implementation, which is the primary business applications which will be implemented in CPWD. The inter-user log-in and user interface will be done through a portal, and that portal will be utilizing the Liferay user portal, which will be the front end user interface. There will be an eTendering application, which will be also through one of my large general partners, who will be working together for us for the eTendering applications, which is also a part of ours, and 40 of the whole automation process. And inter-application, eTendering, the portal, and all the applications, as a matter of fact, will be hosted to the cloud on AWS platform. Now, once you're talking about the AWS platform, that means it will implement the complete infrastructure of the service, and the complete platform as a service. So, all the computed storage, everything will be deploying from the AWS cloud, and necessarily all the platform in terms of your database applications, all third-party tools to do the performance testing, management, monitoring. Everything will be provided as a platform of the service by AWS. So, we, engaged AWS from the beginning itself, the AWS team, and SMP team, both major OEMs worked with us very hand and gloves from day one. And we had multiple interactions with the customer. We understood the challenges. We understood the number of users, number of iterations, number of redundancy, number of high, I mean, the kind of high availability they will require in times of the business difficulty of the applications, and based on which, together, along with AWS, Tech Mahindra, and SAP, all three of us together, and I have the complete solutions, architecture, and the optimizations of the whole solutions, so that overall impact comes to CPWD as the customer, the ultimate results, and the business output they deserve. You know? So, that is where we actually interacted. We have got the interactions with AWS solutions team, AWS architect team, along with our interface architect and the solutions team, who worked very closely along with the customers, them desizing so that it exactly matches the requirement not only for today, down the line for the next four years, because the complete implementation cycle is 18 months, and after that, Tech Mahindra is a prime service provider. We'll provide the four years after implementation support to CPWD, because we all understand that any government department, they need government understanding. These kind of business applications implementation is a transformation. Now, this transformation definitely cannot happen overnight. It has to happen through a process, through a cycle, and through a phase, because there will be the users who will be the proactive users who will start using the inter-applications from the beginning, and, gradually, the more and more success, the more and more user friendliness will come into the whole picture. Then, participation for multiple users, multiple stakeholders will come on board. The moment that comes in, the users load, the user's participation and user's load, both into the platforms, both into the infrastructure will keep on changing, keep on increasing, and that is why our role will be how to manage the complete infrastructure, how to manage the complete platform throughout the journey of this transformation of five and a half years. And that is what the exact role as a prime and large MSP Tech Mahindra will perform for the next five and a half years along with AWS, along with CPWD, and along with SAP. (coughs) >> All right, well, Satyendra, Gautam just laid out, I think, a lot of the reasons why they won the customer obsessed award from AWS on this. You know, I think back to earlier in my career and you talk about NSAP rollout, and it's not only the length of time that it takes for the rollout, and the finance involved, but what Gautam was talking about is the organizational impact and adoptions. So, I would love to hear from your side. You know, what were the goals that you had coming into this? It sounds like getting greater adoption inside the organization for using these services. Give us your insight as to, you know, how that roll-out has been going, the goals you had, how you're meeting them, any success metrics that you use internally to talk about how the project has gone so far. >> We implement the Atlas System in the CPWD, the activities going on since a long time. It was more than one and a half years had been passed, we have angers, one of them concerning our ideas and the way we transform our business processes. They have some certain ideas and that the app implementation is the last one. Most of them have been implemented and we have started, started to get ideas to implement some, but we had bad interactions with all the leading IT service providers in the country, along with all the leading cloud service providers in the country, and this, of course, all the leading EIP services, OEMs, EIP, OEMs, so and so. But, it's a long journey, we have a trial approximately half of the deadline from there. To inform returning process, Tech Mahindra has been appointed as the system integrator and they have come with all the sorts of the services that they are offering, for example, they plan to use SAP, and EIP will be in there, as well. This "one life" system for the portal, eTendering, is a primary credit, has been done. And overall everything has been hosted on the AWS cloud platform. So, it's just that, when could we have. And, everybody knows that Amazon is the leading cloud service provider with the largest of the facilities available with us, so, during this journey, we have got lots of support from the AWS via lots of the credit regarding us to get it set up with the AWS team, and continuously boosted our office and explained each of our queries on this, and now, from the march onwards, Tech Mahindra has started the implementation process we are in. More than four months have been passed since then. And we have covered a lot. The whole objective of this implementation is all our activities will be done on this EIP system, only that if somebody is working in the CPWD, you will activate that. Work in the CPWD on the EIP, or you will not be able to work at all. This is a light goal and whole system. But, all of our system is going to be automatic. Earlier, we were having a different idea because when we were working in the silos, everything we wanted to be integrated with each other, and the time that will be invested to make the entry of the different activity at a different time and with the applications, applicants are not talking to each other, they are working in the silos, but that will go away. So, what we are expecting everything will be on the EIP system, as well, and we are expecting the efficiency of the CPWD unit is going to be increased tremendously. Apart from this, they will handle a more number of the works compared to what they were handling and the time in it since. And everything will revolved around the click of the buttons and we need not to go and ask from anybody to give the reports, et cetera. So, problem management must peak, too. By the click of the button, we will also be able to get all the inputs, all the reports with what is going on across the country. And that idea. So, it is going to be really a transformation to the working of the department, and, in whole, the entire public work center of this country is going to be benefited out of this. This has been like a lighthouse today. This EIP implemented in the CPWD is the lighthouse up ahead, so there are more than 30 public work departments, said public work departments are working, so this is going to create and open a window for everybody there. Once it is a success of this implementation, we'll have it far reaching implication on the implementation of that EIP system or a similar idea for implications in the public works or in the whole country. So, so, there's lots of these stakes our there. To any and, hopefully, with the help of Tech Mahindra, with the help of SAP, AWS, and Amazon, one day they will be able to implement successfully and we will, we are going to get the benefit out of. Everybody is going benefit, not only the Central Public Works Department, but all of our stakeholders. All the stakeholders in terms of businesses, in terms of their reach to the Public Works, and there is a new door to open because the IT had not been leveraged the way in the Public Works Department in the central department or the state government. The other IT system hadn't used EIP. It is going, it's a lighthouse headed to success. We'll have a far reaching implication for everybody. >> Well, I tell you, Satyendra, that's been the promise of cloud, that we should be able to do something, and the scalability and repeatability is something that we should be able to go. Gautam, I want to give you the final word on this. You know, speak to how does cloud, how do we enable this to be able to scale throughout many groups within the organization without having to be, you know, as much work, you know. I think about traditional IT, it's, well, okay, I spend a project, I spend so much time on it, and then every time I need to repeat it, I kind of, you know, have that same amount of work. The, you know, labor should go down as we scale out in a cloud environment. Is that, what you feel, the case? You know, help us understand how this lighthouse account will expand. >> Okay. So, any cloud, you know, have initiative nowadays into any organization. It depends. It primarily benefits in both the ways. Number one, the organization doesn't require to invest up front on the capital expenditure part of it. That's very important. Number two, the organization has got the flexibility to scale up and scale down based on the customer requirements. Within a click of the mouse. It doesn't take any time. Because the inter-positioning of the infrastructure is available with the cloud infrastructure service provider. And, similarly, the scaling of the platforms, that's also available with the cloud infrastructure provider. So, once you do the complete mapping requirement and the sizing for the entire tenure of the project, then the provisioning and deprovisioning is not a matter of time, it can happen with a click of mouse. That's number one. Number two, it's become a challenging activity for any government organization to have their own IT set-up. To manage such a huge, mammoth task of the entire infrastructure, applications, services, troubleshooting, 24 by 7, everything. So, that's not expected from the large government organizations, as such, because that's not their business. Their business is to run the country, their business to run the organization, their business to grow the country's different ideas. And, the IT services organizations, like Tech Mahindra, is there to support those kind of automation processes. And, the platforms which are available on the cloud nowadays, that's the ease of inter-applications, inter-management, monitoring, availability of the entire infrastructure, that makes use of the whole, complete system. So, it all works together. It's not a thing that the system integration organizations already will do the all new reform. It has to happen in synergies. So, application has to work together, infrastructure has to be available together, the management, monitoring has to happen, scaling up, scaling down has to happen, all kinds of updates, upgrades, and badges down the line for the company, continuing of the whole contract has to happen so that the system, once up and running and benefited, it's performing at least for a period of the next five years, as the tenure of the contract, in multiple department happens. Now, what Mr. Gupta was saying, it's very very true that CPWD is the kind of motherly organizations for all public works departments in the country. And, all the public works departments in the country are eagerly looking at this project. Now, it is very important for all of us, not only for Tech Mahindra, Tech Mahindra, SAP, Liferay, and AWS, together, to work and make this project as a success, because it is not a reason that, as a simple customer, this project has to be successful. It's a flexible project for the government of India, and it's been monitored by Didac Lee, the government of India officials, and top ranking bodies on a day in and day out basis, number one. Number two, if we become successful together in this project, there will be an avenue for what Satyendra Gupta has said. That all state PWDs will be open to everybody. They will try and adopt, and they will try and implement a similar kind of system to all the respective states in the country. So it's a huge opportunity in terms of technology enhancement, automations, infrastructure, applications, and moreover, as a service provider, to provide the services to all these bodies, together, which, I feel, it's a huge huge opportunity for all of us together, and we are confident that we will work together, hand in gloves, the way we have done from the day one of this initiative, and we'll take it forward. >> All right, well Satyendra, thank you so much for sharing the details of your project, wish you the best of luck with that going forward. And, Gautam, congratulations again to Tech Mahindra for winning the most customer obsessed migration solution. Thank you both for joining. >> Both: Thank you. >> Thank you very much. >> Thank you very much. >> All right, and thank you for joining. I'm Stu Miniman, this is theCUBE's coverage of AWS Public Sector Partner Awards. Thanks for watching. >> Gautam: Thank you very much. (bright upbeat music)