In response to IT vendors such as HP increasingly targeting the service provider market, Nokia on Monday launched a suite of telco cloud data center products that aim to help carriers compete with cloud providers like Amazon and Google.

It's another not-so-subtle sign that the worlds of IT and telecom are colliding. Called AirFrame, the new product line includes servers, switches, and storage hardware built off of open source specs and optimized for network functions virtualization (NFV) scale-out.

Here's a first look at the new offerings:

Nokia AirFrame Cloud Server: A two-socket rackmount server with built-in storage, running dual Intel Xeon Haswell processors. Nokia's custom application accelerator makes it "more efficient than existing x86-based servers to run demanding telco applications," the company claims.

Nokia AirFrame Cloud Switch: High port density and 1.44-Tb/s switching capacity make this top-of-rack switch "optimal for infrastructure-as-a-service" deployments, Nokia says. Supports OpenFlow and open APIs for software-defined network deployments in the data center.

Nokia Airframe Racking: A 42U rack with pre-installed cable sets and metered power distribution unit for remote power monitoring and management via Internet, Telnet, SNMP, or SSH.

The infrastructure products are designed to help carriers offer cloud services to subscribers, as well as run distributed container-based applications, an approach pioneered by webscale players such as Google and Facebook.

"Telco and IT are coming together," Nokia executive Henri Tervonen said during a press conference Monday morning. "They're coming together into a new domain, a new market."