vmw-rewriting-rules-telco-infrastructure-1400x500-1 - VMware News and Stories

https://news-editor.vmware.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/logo_media_thumbnail.jpg

VMware News & Stories

VMware News and Stories

Home

vmw-rewriting-rules-telco-infrastructure-1400&#215;500-1

TWGF_RADIUSHero_1280x675 - VMware News and Stories

Together, We Go Far: How a Small Farming Community Is Sowing the Seeds for the Future of Agriculture

TWGF_RADIUSHero_1280x675

PlanetBee_RADIUSHero_1280x675 - VMware News and Stories

How Planet Bee Advanced Its Eco-Mission with Students Stuck at Home

PlanetBee_RADIUSHero_1280x675

Two IT leaders share how their teams enabled fast remote work capabilities in the face of the global pandemic - and what's coming next.

Remote Work Now What_IT Advice_VMware RADIUS - VMware News and Stories

The Remote Work Genie Is Out of the Bottle. Now What?

Remote Work Now What_IT Advice_VMware RADIUS

IT leaders from Nebraska Medicine and Cofense on how they're enabling their remote workforce during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Tips Enabling Remote Workforce_VMware RADIUS - VMware News and Stories

Tips for Enabling a Remote Workforce: &#8220;Work Is What You Do, Not Where You Go&#8221;

Tips Enabling Remote Workforce_VMware RADIUS

indian_female_software_engineer - VMware News and Stories

From Stay-At-Home Mom to Software Engineer: How Returnships Bring Overlooked Talent to Tech

indian_female_software_engineer

5G Open Innovation Lab partners with the 5G Food Resiliency Project to move edge computing “beyond the hype."

How a Farming Community is Sowing Seeds for the Future

https://news-editor.vmware.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/TWGF_FACEBOOK_1200x628.png

How a Farming Community is Sowing Seeds for the Futu - VMware News and Stories

Posts

Angela Leaf

Today, every organization needs technology to manage operations and deliver services. Yet, due to <a href="https://ssir.org/articles/entry/the_nonprofit_starvation_cycle">resource constraints and systemic inequities</a>, social sector organizations struggle to fully realize the benefits of technology.
This gap became even more pronounced last year as we faced the pandemic. During this time, nonprofits had to quickly adopt digital strategies to serve their communities. One of those nonprofits is <a href="https://www.planetbee.org/">Planet Bee Foundation</a>.

core/freeform

core/pullquote

Planet Bee Foundation is dedicated to developing an eco-conscious generation. The nonprofit promotes environmental stewardship and individual action through the teaching lens of the struggling honeybee. But in the wake of a pandemic and social distancing, how can in-person teaching continue?
To support this critical need, Planet Bee teamed up with VMware people on a <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1TZ86HEakg0">Good Gigs Project</a>.
<h2>Tech Pro Bono: From Theory to Practice</h2>
VMware created Good Gigs Projects to strengthen nonprofit tech capacity through <a href="https://news.vmware.com/stomer-centric-approach-to-transforming-technology-pro-bono/">pro bono service learning</a>. This is one component of VMware’s ongoing <a href="https://www.vmware.com/company/news/updates/commitment-nonprofit-digital-transformation.html">commitment to nonprofit digital transformation</a> <a href="https://www.vmware.com/2030agenda.html">2030 Agenda</a>.
To ensure digital transformation projects are meaningful and long-lasting, Good Gigs uses a phased approach. Teams discover, design, implement and maintain each project.
<img loading="lazy" class="aligncenter wp-image-23758 size-full" src="https://news-editor.vmware.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/Solution-Development-Framework.png" alt="" width="980" height="402" srcset="https://news-editor.vmware.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/Solution-Development-Framework.png 980w, https://news-editor.vmware.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/Solution-Development-Framework.png?resize=300,123 300w, https://news-editor.vmware.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/Solution-Development-Framework.png?resize=768,315 768w" sizes="(max-width: 980px) 100vw, 980px" />
Through the partnership with Good Gigs Projects, Planet Bee staff assessed IT infrastructure and explored ways to:
<ul>
<li>Maximize efficiencies.</li>
<li>Reduce costs.</li>
<li>Redirect IT administrative efforts towards other needs.</li>
</ul>
Planet Bee staff also quickly pivoted to digitize its curriculum and deliver virtual <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EkYmJe3Zfb4&#038;t=5s">Bee STEM </a>lessons.
“The ability to fulfill our mission at this junction is more important than ever with the inequities occurring due to COVID, the limited access to environmental education in schools and communities, and the relentless acceleration of climate change. Because of the VMware Good Gigs team, we were able to meet this unprecedented moment of the pandemic as a small, local nonprofit and address the needs of the students, teachers, and community members that we serve.” – Debra Tomaszewski, Founder, and Executive Director, Planet Bee Foundation.
<iframe loading="lazy" title="Building Digital Resilience with Good Gigs Projects" width="500" height="281" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/P-NpANA7TDM?feature=oembed" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen></iframe>
Nonprofit staff and VMware employees reflect on their Good Gigs experience.
“Throughout the Good Gigs Project, my goal was to place the nonprofit’s needs first. (I had to) understand their line of business, their challenges, and vision before arriving at a hasty solution that might not address their needs.” – Mona Houcheime, manager, VMware, and Good Gigs project lead with Planet Bee.
<h2>Leaders for the Future</h2>
In the past two years, 22 nonprofits in six countries have been supported on their digital journey through VMware employee-led Good Gigs Projects.
“I think one of the best ways to grow as a leader is serving others. When you&#8217;re doing that, you have to humble yourself and work towards a common goal.” – Matt Snyder, Senior Threat Analytics Engineer at VMware and Good Gigs Project Lead with Planet Bee.
<a href="https://taprootfoundation.org/pro-bono-reshapes-leadership-development-playbook/">Research</a> shows that pro bono service-learning is an avenue to diversify and broaden our perspectives, which helps us innovate, navigate ambiguity and become agents of meaningful change.

Get our most popular articles, videos, and more—recommended just for you.

corpnews-blocks/banner

Planet Bee partners with Good Gigs Projects to advance its mission of teaching environmental stewardship and individual action.

https://news-editor.vmware.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/PlanetBee_FACEBOOK_1200x628.png

How Planet Bee Advanced Mission During Pandemic - VMware News and Stories

Employers across the globe are uncertain about when and how they’ll welcome employees back to the office. But one thing is abundantly clear: Remote work is here to stay.
To adhere to social-distancing guidelines, many business leaders plan to keep a portion of their workforce remote. In fact, “nearly 3-in-4 CFOs plan to shift at least 5 percent of previously onsite employees to permanently remote positions post-COVID 19,” according to <a href="https://www.gartner.com/en/newsroom/press-releases/2020-04-03-gartner-cfo-surey-reveals-74-percent-of-organizations-to-shift-some-employees-to-remote-work-permanently2">a recent Gartner survey</a>.* And IT is in the hot seat for enabling this new workforce reality.
To help us explore how IT teams navigate this “new normal,” <a href="https://gateway.on24.com/wcc/gateway/elitesimplermedia/1611636/?partnerref=radius" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">we sat down with technology leaders</a> (virtually, of course) from Pittsburgh Technical College and World Wide Technology.

Hear from two innovative IT leaders as they share their powerful experiences during The Future of Employee Experience Summit.

<h2>IT Teams Shine In Initial Response</h2>
World Wide Technology (WWT) is a technology solution provider with more than 6,000 global employees. Before the pandemic hit, the company estimates that under a quarter of employees worked from a remote site. That figure jumped to more than 90 percent in the last few months.
Fortunately for WWT, its IT team made pre-pandemic <a href="https://news.vmware.com/c/digital-workspace/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">digital workspace</a> investments.
“I feel like we’ve spent a lot of time over the years preparing for this kind of moment without really knowing we were preparing for this kind of moment,” says Joey Toms, manager of IT end-user services at WWT. “Having a digital workspace platform and robust <a href="https://www.vmware.com/topics/glossary/content/virtual-desktop-infrastructure-vdi" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">VDI environment</a> already in place meant that, fortunately, we didn’t have to hurry up and burn the midnight oil for 12 days straight just to ramp up and be ready.”
Using an app catalog and virtual desktop environment, WWT employees access critical business apps from any device and any location. “The only thing that changed was the morning commute,” says Toms.
Pittsburgh Technical College (PTC) also made a smooth transition to a remote work and learning environment thanks to previous tech investments.
“Our campus infrastructure is about 95 percent virtualized. Not just our servers, which are probably closer to 98 percent virtualized, but our workstations, as well,” explains Jon Buhagiar, supervisor of network operations at PTC. “So, when we had to make the switch to working remote, the only difference to the worker was that they were not working at their desk anymore. They still had the same software and same standardized desktop image. Basically, the only difference was they were in a different place.”
That’s not to say the transition was without technical challenges.
PTC’s campus, for example, is located in rural Pennsylvania. Many staff and students live in communities without access to high-speed internet. To accommodate these connection challenges, PTC shipped hotspots so users could access their virtual learning environment and stay productive.

In this slideshow, 13 IT leaders talk about supporting their organizations' business continuity plans during the global disruption.

<h2>Technology Helps Provide a Human-Touch</h2>
Another unique challenge for PTC’s IT team was keeping the college’s unique cultural and academic spirit alive.
As CIO Bill Showers explains, “We’re a single campus, and so our culture has always been very much centered around an open-door policy. It&#8217;s very common for folks to just drop by your office for an unscheduled chat. Our biggest challenge here has been navigating how to keep that family atmosphere and tight, single-campus culture and transfer it online.”

Expert Laurel Farrer tackles the urgent challenges leaders face now that billions of workers are suddenly required to work from home.

Collaboration tools helped the team both cultivate in-person connections and open the eyes of its staff to technology’s possibilities.
“We&#8217;re seeing all sorts of folks eager to try new alternatives and moving to collaboration apps and video chats to connect. These are colleagues who I would have never pegged for that, and they have been very progressive. I think this is going to raise the bar for us technology-wise moving forward,” says Showers.
The PTC team also had to find creative solutions to enable professors to remotely teach highly-technical subjects that traditionally call for hands-on instruction.
Buhagiar shares, “We teach programmable logic controllers, or PLC, in the electronics program and you need a physical PLC when you&#8217;re doing that. One of the ways we overcame that challenges was to use an emulator to simulate the experience in a virtual environment. While the students cannot touch and feel the actual device, they can see and experience the intended learning outcome.”
<h2>Reimagining IT Support in the &#8220;New Normal&#8221;</h2>
In light of the pandemic, getting users remote access to apps and resources was the top priority a few months ago. Today, IT teams continue innovating to address other challenges associated with keeping a business or organization running.
Toms shares that one of his team’s biggest challenges at WWT is getting physical hardware and devices to new hires. These employees joined the team during the lockdown and are located in countries that have experienced supply chain disruption.
“We&#8217;ve been very fortunate to utilize VDI to allow new employees in these situations to use whatever device they have at home while we work on getting them their company-issued device,” he explains. “Since they are accessing our data center and company network from a secure VDI instance, we can get new hires up and running quickly on a personal device without being concerned from a security standpoint.”
WWT uses this approach when an employee’s device is broken and requires an IT person to physically repair it.
“People working from home with their kids just seems to equate to more accidents,” jokes Toms.
When a device needs repair, employees use a personal device to access the apps they need through WWT’s digital workspace platform. Then, an IT team member fixes the work-issued device and ships it back to them.

Two IT leaders share how they're enabling their remote workforce during the COVID-19 pandemic.

<h2>The Remote Work Genie Is Out of the Bottle</h2>
While this transition isn’t without challenges, these IT leaders still find a few silver linings when looking forward to their organizations’ futures.
For one, Toms expects employees to be much more open to modern collaboration tools that were previously resisted.
“We&#8217;ve seen our video collaboration minutes explode, increasing by over 50 percent. Our internal team chat tool use has exploded as well,” explains Toms. “I like to think we&#8217;re going to come back to the office to a much more technically-astute user base. That’s my optimism,” Toms says.
Showers agrees that in addition to users adopting new technologies, this experience changes the way many students and teachers feel about distance learning.
“I think the genie is out of the bottle. You&#8217;re going to see both employees and employers demanding support for remote work moving forward,” he predicts.
Watch the full conversation between PTC and WWT’s IT leaders.

Dive deeper into how PTC and WWT's innovative IT teams quickly enabled their newly remote workforces.

*Gartner Press Release, Gartner CFO Survey Reveals 74% Intend to Shift Some Employees to Remote Work Permanently, April 3, 2020, <a href="https://www.gartner.com/en/newsroom/press-releases/2020-04-03-gartner-cfo-surey-reveals-74-percent-of-organizations-to-shift-some-employees-to-remote-work-permanently2">https://www.gartner.com/en/newsroom/press-releases/2020-04-03-gartner-cfo-surey-reveals-74-percent-of-organizations-to-shift-some-employees-to-remote-work-permanently2</a>

https://news-editor.vmware.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/Remote-Work-Now-What_IT-Advice_FB.jpg

The Remote Work Genie Is Out of the Bottle. Now What? - VMware News and Stories

When a significant work disruption—be it a natural disaster, security breach or global pandemic—strikes, effective business leaders quickly pivot from “business as usual” to a new reality. It forces teams to hone in on top priorities and innovate new ways of working together to achieve them.
This is especially true today, as many companies now suddenly have a fully remote workforce. For businesses enabling a remote-first experience, the good news is that investments will continue paying off long after business disruption fades.
<h2>The Value of Digital Employee Experience</h2>
Today, we’re seeing just how important it is to be able to provide employees with a positive digital experience as they work outside of the office. However, providing a great digital experience, which includes enabling remote work, has long been on the minds of IT and HR leaders at companies competing to attract and retain the best talent.
Mark Zigadlo, vice president of technology and security services at Cofense, explains:
<blockquote class="center">
When I started to build a remote-first strategy for our company, I wasn’t thinking about a global pandemic.
</blockquote>
&#8220;I was really just thinking about being able to hire the right talent in the right places and provide a similar experience to somebody who might be based in Japan as somebody that&#8217;s based in our corporate offices.”
One digital employee experience that Zigadlo and his team aimed to improve was employee onboarding. After nearly doubling its workforce in a year by onboarding approximately 250 staff, Cofense saved its IT team hundreds of hours in configuration time alone, ultimately speeding up the time it took to get new employees up and running.
<h2>A Necessity for Today, An Investment for Tomorrow</h2>
The key to enabling a remote-first culture is providing employees with everything they need at their fingertips. This requires an investment in digital workspace technology that makes the experience of accessing apps from anywhere on any device intuitive and frictionless.
Brian Lancaster, CIO of Nebraska Medicine, says, “Several years ago, our IT team adopted the strategy of ‘anywhere, anytime, technology transforms.’ And last year, we achieved a key milestone where we enabled basically everyone across our different businesses to be able to teach, learn, conduct research and provide care via online channels.”
Nebraska Medicine operates a healthcare network that covers metro Omaha and extends across the region. It also has a research and education organization, the University of Nebraska Medical Center (UNMC).
In the wake of COVID-19, Nebraska Medicine professors and students now log into their digital workspace to access apps to run all classes, including labs, in a virtual environment. And for Nebraska Medical Center, all employees who do not need to go into the hospital are asked to work from home, accessing required apps and resources from their digital workspace.
“The investment we made in our digital workspace strategy is certainly helping us maintain continuity and deliver better care in these extraordinary times,” says Lancaster.
Investing in a remote-first culture will continue to benefit both employees and employers once individuals return to the office.
“When this is all over, there are going to be some companies that, for whatever reason, whether it be regulatory or some other reason, can&#8217;t necessarily support full time work-from-home policies,” says Zigadlo. “But that doesn&#8217;t mean adopting a remote-first culture isn&#8217;t useful. Adopting this mentality can help IT staff feel more confident supporting employees that work across geographically dispersed offices, for instance.”

Read the full Cofense case study to learn more about how automation helped make Cofense’s onboarding process more personal.

<h2>Building A Remote-First Culture Goes Beyond Technology</h2>
Technology is only part of a successful remote work equation. After all, it doesn’t matter what technology you have if employees don’t trust it or don’t have a good experience using it.
“If you look at our users—clinicians and professors—they’re not using the technology because they want to,” shares Lancaster. “In fact, if you do a quick search on ‘physician burnout,’ accessing electronic medical records and technology usage are high on the list of culprits. For us, educating our users about the benefits, addressing concerns regarding privacy and ease of use, and articulating a process for a smooth rollout were just as important, if not more so, than the technology.”
Lancaster describes a 6-9 month period  when he and his chief information security officer went office-to-office to address questions related to the technology his IT team would use to enable remote work and bring-your-own-device programs. This part of the roll-out (communication, assurance and support) required an investment of time, but it’s time Lancaster feels was more than well spent.
“How we used to enable remote access was a horrible user experience and was always in the top five IT helpdesk escalations,” Lancaster says. “Our improved process only takes a couple clicks to get users working remotely, providing them with an experience similar to what they are used to with online banking. Once employees began having this improved experience under the new method, we started seeing a shift from concern to people telling their peers to do it, because it was easier and better.”

Learn more about how Nebraska Medicine is driving better patient outcomes with its strategic vision for cloud, security and mobility in this case study.

<h2>Helping Employees Adjust to a New Normal</h2>
As more employees work from their homes—perhaps for the first time in their careers—IT teams play a critical role in helping employees adjust to this new normal.
At Nebraska Medicine, Lancaster and his team stood up several online resources to help professors adjust to teaching classes to medical students in a virtual environment.
“In addition to making sure professors knew where they can find tips related to installing and using the technology, we added resources on how to run an effective online meeting, strategies for adapting curriculum to a virtual environment and how to run a virtual lab. We’re leveraging best practices from across our organization to create a digital knowledge base to help staff adjust to their new working realities,” Lancaster says.

Watch this webinar to learn how to quickly set up a remote workforce for success.

<h2>A Workforce Forever Changed</h2>
While the timeline for when people will start heading back to the office is unclear, many agree that this experience forever changed the way employees and companies view remote work.
Lancaster says, “I believe very strongly that work is what you do, not where you go. And I think we should continue to have spaces that facilitate that. It could be private spaces like a home office, or it could be community spaces for collaboration, where needed. The point is providing employees with the freedom to choose.”
Lancaster and Zigadlo shared additional insights on how, when and why to invest in a remote first culture during The Future of Employee Summit, presented by VMware and CMSWire. <a href="https://exsummit.vmware.com?src=RADIUS" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Watch it here.</a>

"Work is what you do, not where you go." How leaders from Nebraska Medicine and Cofense are enabling a remote workforce during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Tips for Enabling a Remote Workforce, According to the Experts

https://news-editor.vmware.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/Tips-Enabling-Remote-Workforce_VMware-RADIUS.jpg

The rollout of the next generation <a href="https://telco.vmware.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">telecom</a> network—more commonly known as 5G—is quickly moving from theoretical to reality. With 5G comes the opportunity for communications service providers (CSPs) to deliver fast connectivity and cutting-edge services to consumers and businesses.
The delivery of 5G-enabled services will have a tremendous impact on every industry. Let’s take healthcare as an example. For remote surgery to become a reality, healthcare organizations require total reliability, high bandwidth, low latency and absolute security from their service provider. In this scenario, the stakes could not be higher for both the healthcare provider and the telco serving that organization.
To deliver these types of services with confidence, CSPs are undertaking significant transformation of nearly every part of their network—from the telco core, edge, to the radio access network.
VMware plays a critical role in this digital transformation and <a href="https://www.vmware.com/company/news/releases/vmw-newsfeed.Global-Service-Providers-Help-Customers-Reduce-Costs-Improve-WAN-Performance-and-Speed-Deployments-with-VMware-SD-WAN.50f19cd5-7228-4995-b05f-e8d60eaf4400.html">today made several announcements</a> showcasing how we are collaborating with customers and partners to move from a hardware-based to a software-defined telco infrastructure.
<h3>VMware NFV Customers Share Their Stories</h3>
Telcos around the globe are choosing VMware to drive their digital transformation forward. In fact, VMware’s Network Functions Virtualization (NFV) platform is relied upon by more than 100 operators to deliver their telecom services to 800 million subscribers globally.
Today, several customers highlighted why they chose VMware’s Telco Cloud platform as the foundation for their digital transformation.
<img loading="lazy" class="attachment-large size-large" src="https://news-editor.vmware.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/vmw-telco-infrastructure-2.png?w=965" sizes="(max-width: 965px) 100vw, 965px" srcset="https://news-editor.vmware.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/vmw-telco-infrastructure-2.png 965w, https://news-editor.vmware.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/vmw-telco-infrastructure-2.png?resize=300,169 300w, https://news-editor.vmware.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/vmw-telco-infrastructure-2.png?resize=768,434 768w" alt="" width="965" height="545" />
<img loading="lazy" class="attachment-large size-large" src="https://news-editor.vmware.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/vmw-telco-infrastructure-3.png?w=965" sizes="(max-width: 965px) 100vw, 965px" srcset="https://news-editor.vmware.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/vmw-telco-infrastructure-3.png 965w, https://news-editor.vmware.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/vmw-telco-infrastructure-3.png?resize=300,169 300w, https://news-editor.vmware.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/vmw-telco-infrastructure-3.png?resize=768,434 768w" alt="" width="965" height="545" />
<img loading="lazy" class="attachment-large size-large" src="https://news-editor.vmware.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/vmw-telco-infrastructure-4.png?w=965" sizes="(max-width: 965px) 100vw, 965px" srcset="https://news-editor.vmware.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/vmw-telco-infrastructure-4.png 965w, https://news-editor.vmware.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/vmw-telco-infrastructure-4.png?resize=300,169 300w, https://news-editor.vmware.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/vmw-telco-infrastructure-4.png?resize=768,434 768w" alt="" width="965" height="545" />
<h3>VMware Telco Cloud Automation is Now Generally Available</h3>
Increasingly, CSPs are delivering services using myriad network function formats—virtual, cloud-native, etc.—from multiple providers across multiple clouds. This pushes orchestration and management challenges exponentially. CSPs are looking for modern orchestration tools to tackle this complexity.
This is precisely the challenge we are setting out to solve with VMware Telco Cloud Automation. <a href="https://www.vmware.com/company/news/releases/vmw-newsfeed.VMware-Unveils-Project-Maestro-A-Telco-Cloud-Orchestrator-To-Help-CSPs-Accelerate-Multi-Cloud-Operational-Agility.daa10d5b-e673-4864-99e0-7b5babd48ce7.html">Previously announced at VMworld 2019 Europe as Project Maestro</a>, Telco Cloud Automation is a cloud-first orchestration solution that will accelerate service time-to-revenue with a simplified vendor-neutral and standard-compliant approach for designing and onboarding virtual network functions, cloud native network functions or network services.
Today, VMware is announcing the general availability of Telco Cloud Automation.
<h5 style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.vmware.com/products/telco-cloud-automation.html">Learn more about Telco Cloud Automation</a>.</h5>
<h3>Cloud and Edge Networking for Today and Tomorrow</h3>
VMware is at the forefront of helping service providers evolve their cloud and network service portfolios, create new revenue streams and accelerate their customers’ wide area network (WAN) transformation.
Today, several customers shared how SD-WAN by VeloCloud plays a critical role in their network transformation journey. <a href="https://news.vmware.com/releases/global-service-providers-help-customers-reduce-costs-improve-wan-performance-and-speed-deployments-with-vmware-sd-wan" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Read the full press release here.</a>
<img loading="lazy" class="attachment-large size-large" src="https://news-editor.vmware.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/vmw-telco-infrastructure-5.png?w=965" sizes="(max-width: 965px) 100vw, 965px" srcset="https://news-editor.vmware.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/vmw-telco-infrastructure-5.png 965w, https://news-editor.vmware.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/vmw-telco-infrastructure-5.png?resize=300,169 300w, https://news-editor.vmware.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/vmw-telco-infrastructure-5.png?resize=768,434 768w" alt="" width="965" height="545" />
<img loading="lazy" class="attachment-large size-large" src="https://news-editor.vmware.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/vmw-telco-infrastructure-6.png?w=965" sizes="(max-width: 965px) 100vw, 965px" srcset="https://news-editor.vmware.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/vmw-telco-infrastructure-6.png 965w, https://news-editor.vmware.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/vmw-telco-infrastructure-6.png?resize=300,169 300w, https://news-editor.vmware.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/vmw-telco-infrastructure-6.png?resize=768,434 768w" alt="" width="965" height="545" />
<img loading="lazy" class="attachment-large size-large" src="https://news-editor.vmware.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/vmw-telco-infrastructure-7.png?w=965" sizes="(max-width: 965px) 100vw, 965px" srcset="https://news-editor.vmware.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/vmw-telco-infrastructure-7.png 965w, https://news-editor.vmware.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/vmw-telco-infrastructure-7.png?resize=300,169 300w, https://news-editor.vmware.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/vmw-telco-infrastructure-7.png?resize=768,434 768w" alt="" width="965" height="545" />
<h5 style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.vmware.com/solutions/sd-wan.html">Learn more about VMware SD-WAN by VeloCloud</a>.</h5>
<h3>VMware and Deutsche Telekom Collaborate on Open vRAN Platform</h3>
While the majority of network modernization efforts start with virtualization of the core network, service providers are beginning to set their sights on realizing the benefits of end-to-end network transformation and are working to virtualize all parts of their network, including the radio access network (RAN).
Traditionally, CSPs are forced to use hardware from a single vendor across all parts of the RAN. By moving to an open, disaggregated and software-defined RAN, CSPs can create a more innovative RAN environment that introduces cloud economics in the radio access network environment—an essential component to delivering apps and services over a 5G network.
VMware is at the center of this exciting transformation and today announced with Deutsche Telekom that the companies are collaborating on an open and intelligent virtual RAN (vRAN) platform, based on O-RAN standards, to bring agility to radio access networks (RANs) for both existing LTE and future 5G networks.
Currently undergoing testing and validation at Deutsche Telekom’s headquarters in Bonn, Germany, this RAN leverages standards-based Intel processors and FlexRAN, a vRAN software reference platform, to run vRAN workloads on top of VMware’s telco cloud platform, optimized for real-time and low latency workloads. <a href="https://news.vmware.com/releases/vmware-and-deutsche-telekom-unveil-collaboration-on-cloud-based-open-and-intelligent-virtual-ran-platform" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Read more about this collaboration here.</a>
 
It’s certainly an exciting time for telcos as they prepare their infrastructure to support 5G. To learn more about how VMware is helping service providers modernize their networks at <a href="https://telco.vmware.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">telco.vmware.com</a>.

To reap the benefits of 5G, CSPs around the globe are working with VMware to adopt a software-defined infrastructure – from core to edge to RAN

Rewriting the Rules of Telco Infrastructure

Rewriting the Rules of Telco Infrastructure | VMware

Meet Shaffaly Talwar. Her career journey is a familiar one.
<ol>
<li>Choose a career path.</li>
<li>Complete the necessary education and training to land a job in your chosen field.</li>
<li>Enter the workforce, honing your skills as you put them into practice.</li>
</ol>
And like many working adults, Talwar encountered a proverbial fork in the road: parenthood.
When Talwar and her husband decided they wanted to start a family, they grappled with the decision every working parent must make. Do we find a childcare solution to continue working, knowing it will mean spending 8-12 hours a day away from my child? Or, do we put one of the parent’s careers on hold to assume full-time caregiving duties? A costly choice, either way.
“I didn’t want to look back and regret that I didn’t get to spend those first few precious years with my child,” explains Talwar. “While I enjoyed my work, I wanted to live every part of my life to the fullest. And that meant taking time away from my career to care for my daughter.”
Her daughter, Khushi, was born on November 24. For the next five years, Talwar’s days were filled with diaper changes, play dates and witnessing all of Khushi’s miraculous milestones, from walking and talking to her first day of school.
“It was when my daughter started school full-time that I thought, ‘If my daughter is getting out of the house, maybe it’s time for me to do the same.’”
Talwar hit the job hunt hard, but after months of unanswered applications, she became frustrated.
“I knew I had the right experience for the jobs I was applying to, but I wasn’t even making it to the first round of screenings. I heard absolutely nothing back. It was disheartening.”
<h1>Overlooked and Unemployed</h1>
Kate Weisshaar, an assistant professor at the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill, focuses her research on gender and economic stratification processes within families, workplaces and society. In 2018, she <a href="https://hbr.org/2018/02/stay-at-home-moms-are-half-as-likely-to-get-a-job-interview-as-moms-who-got-laid-off" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">published</a> research that found many employers are biased against job applicants who elect to stay at home with their children. Her research found that employers preferred laid-off applicants who have been out of work for the same amount of time.
When she dug into the reasons why stay-at-home parents were more than half as likely to receive callbacks than other unemployed candidates, she found that many respondents viewed stay-at-home parents as:
<ul>
<li>Less reliable.</li>
<li>Less deserving of a job.</li>
<li>Less committed to work.</li>
</ul>
<h1>A New Path Forward</h1>
Talwar started researching return-to-work programs, often referred to as “returnships.” A returnship is a temporary job placement for professionals restarting their careers after taking time off for caregiving or other family obligations.
Talwar’s search led her to <a href="https://www.pathforward.org/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Path Forward</a>, a non-profit organization dedicated to working with companies to create and run returnships. Since 2016, Path Forward’s worked with more than 50 companies to create return-to-work programs. The organization also hosts regular workshops that connect participants with alumni to help build networks and refresh skills.
The success of their programs is evident. More than 80 percent of the participants have been hired by the companies where they completed their returnship.
<h1>Bringing Overlooked Talent to Tech</h1>
One of the industries that would benefit most from recruiting and training talent from non-traditional places is the technology industry. Research from the <a href="https://dsqapj1lakrkc.cloudfront.net/media/sidebar_downloads/FOWTalentCrunchFinal_Spring2018.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Korn Ferry Institute</a> suggests that by 2030, the tech industry will face a labor-skills shortage of 4.3 million workers.
Jim Allison is a senior director of engineering at VMware and has been with the company for nearly nine years. His team, part of VMware’s engineering organization, is one of the first at the company to participate in a return-to-work program.
“We are trying to recruit engineering talent in a very competitive environment [in the Bay Area]. So, we are always looking for ways to find exceptional talent in unexpected places,” Allison explains. “In a way, these programs provide a win-win for the employer and candidates. We can assess the candidate’s skills over an extended period of time, and the candidate can evaluate if the company’s culture is a good fit for them.”
Senior director of engineering Lilit Div partnered with Allison, among many others on their team, to pilot VMware’s returnship program. She was also the hiring manager for the initial set of openings created for returnship candidates.
“We decided to partner with Path Forward because they specialized in recruiting candidates with engineering backgrounds. I was blown away by candidates I interviewed,” Div says. “Honestly, it was a much more emotional process than I expected. It was difficult to rationalize how these highly-motivated women had been overlooked because of their choice to stay home with their children.”
Talwar is one of five Path Forward candidates currently completing a 16-week returnship on VMware’s engineering team. Nearly three months into her VMware returnship, Talwar says things are going really well.
“There were a few ups and downs in the beginning as we all adjusted to my new work schedule, but overall, it’s been great. I am getting to put my technical skills back to work and am learning new skills every day. I’m loving it.”

Looking for exceptional tech talent? Read about the value of returnships, return-to-work programs for professionals restarting their careers.

Finding Tech Talent in Unexpected Places | VMware RADIUS

https://news-editor.vmware.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/indian_female_software_engineer-1.jpg

Angela Leaf

Latest

Together, We Go Far: How a Small Farming Community Is Sowing the Seeds for the Future of Agriculture

How Planet Bee Advanced Its Eco‑Mission with Students Stuck at Home

The Remote Work Genie Is Out of the Bottle. Now What?

Tips for Enabling a Remote Workforce: “Work Is What You Do, Not Where You Go”

Rewriting the Rules of Telco Infrastructure | VMware

From Stay‑At‑Home Mom to Software Engineer: How Returnships Bring Overlooked Talent to Tech