STC Solutions, Aricent Partner to Build CoE for SDN/NFV in Riyadh

The Arabian Internet & Communications Services Co. (STC Solutions) and Aricent have signed a MoU at the world's largest wireless industry event, MWC 2018, to build a Center of Excellence (CoE) in Riyadh.

This will foster innovation and accelerate the adoption of Software Defined Networking (SDN) and Network Functions Virtualization (NFV) in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.

“The CoE is an important element of our ongoing commitment to deliver on Saudi Arabia’s Vision 2030 supporting the nation’s digital transformation”, says Omer Alnomany, STC Solutions Chief Executive Officer.

In line with the theme of MWC 2018, Creating a Better Future, the companies will jointly develop carrier-grade SDN/NFV solutions, tools, and methodologies to empower STC Solutions’ clients with their technology transition. The companies consider SDN/NFV a key factor to simplify the network infrastructure and support innovative use cases. The CoE provides the foundation to support an ongoing and ever faster transition to new digital services and to offer the best network and customer experiences.

“It is another step in our strategy for an open, standards-based and vendor-neutral approach towards SDN/NFV”, says Thamir Alhammad, Vice President Enterprise Services at STC Solutions. “It will facilitate skills development for beginner and advanced level technical training for industry certification. This promotes an innovation and R&D culture. Connecting our knowledge of the local ICT market with Aricent’s global engineering prowess, we are able to pilot, verify and deploy new capabilities and customer experiences, without our clients needing to worry about the technology. We believe this ecosystem and collaboration model is very beneficial for embracing and growing new technologies.”

The CoE will enable STC Solutions to develop and share best practices and tools to simplify how customers design, deploy and manage their networks. Dietmar Wendt, President Communications at Aricent added, “We will focus on a new wave of innovation leveraging virtualization technologies. This will drive exciting and unprecedented capabilities and use cases in the near future. The MoU cements our partnership with STC Solutions and allows us to learn together, share knowledge and build joint experiences, pilots and deployments on this journey. This will accelerate progress in this domain and will benefit our clients, developers and the open source community.”

The companies will define a dynamic and evolving virtualization roadmap for the CoE based on client-centred priorities. Thamir Alhammad concluded: “The CoE approach is a practical and results-oriented initiative, taking advantage of the latest capabilities in the industry. It ensures a safe and successful deployment for our clients.”