Dell India announced that it is turning its research and development center in Chennai into a Center of Excellence in Networking for Dell. Since the acquisition of Force10 Networks in August 2011, Chennai has become a critical research and development (R&D) hub for Dell’s Networking business, leading transformation projects in three domains: Servers, Networking and Storage.
As a Centre of Excellence, the Chennai Development Center will enhance its expertise in routing, switching, network operating system, network management and reference architecture. The center will focus on high-end design and development of Force10 networking switches and routers, in collaboration with the San Jose Development Center (SDC). The Chennai center will facilitate a complete end-to-end networking product development platform, which will be cost effective and value driven with capabilities across development, design, quality assurance, product management and support. The Chennai Development Center will facilitate the complete process starting from the inception of an idea based on customer requirements, to developing, testing and shipping products to the customer.
Over the last year, all data center innovation from Force10 Networks has been successfully integrated into Dell’s solutions and is now available to customers. This forms the basis of the 10/40G fabric to connect servers, storage and networking. The Dell Force10 center in Chennai is a global center of competence for leading-edge core/switch product development, including software for Force10’s E-, S- and C-Series product lines and multi-protocol label switching (MPLS). Since the acquisition, the center has already accomplished leading innovations built on data center networking products like Z9000 on performance-packaging-power metrics. The center has successfully designed, developed and delivered technologies in open automation and blade switching, while gaining more than 560 man-years of Force10 Operating System (FTOS) experience.
Dell’s Networking Strategy following the acquisition of Force10
Data center networking is going through a significant transformation to meet the needs of end users, applications, virtualization, and IT administrators. Dell’s differentiated networking strategy, the Dell Virtual Network Architecture (VNA), offers an alternative to traditional networking vendors. VNA represents a dynamic environment that is characterized by open automation, pay-as-you-grow architecture, and highly scalable stacking solutions. The Force10 acquisition has helped Dell broaden its networking portfolio to effectively deliver its Virtual Network Architecture.
Dell is strongly focused on expanding its enterprise solutions and services capabilities and key focus areas include cloud, networking, next-generation computing solutions and storage. This year, the company will be spending more than $700 million on R&D globally, the vast majority of which will go toward enterprise solutions offerings including servers, storage, services and networking. Dell will continue to increase its R&D spend to build and acquire intellectual property. Dell manages its research, development and engineering spending by targeting those innovations and products that would be most valuable to its customers and by relying upon the capabilities of its strategic relationships.
“Chennai has emerged as a critical market for innovation, research and development for Dell. Talent acquisition and management will be a priority over the next twelve months, as we look to enhance the role of this center in Dell’s networking projects globally. We plan to significantly increase our investment in routing/switching and open automation/network management functions,” said Sreedhara Narayanaswamy, Executive Director & Center Head for Chennai R&D, Dell India.