5G is poised to deliver advanced digital services to businesses of any size across all industries. The challenge is marrying Radio Access Network (RAN) functionality with cloud infrastructure and enterprise applications. Implementing Cloud RAN functionality at the customer edge of the network using an open cloud platform delivers a stable and secure operating environment that enables rapid and reliable delivery of 5G network services.
Operators have been moving network functionality to the cloud for nearly a decade, but virtualizing elements of the RAN has proven to be more complicated. Nokia 5G Cloud RAN is a cloud-native solution that shares edge computing resources while utilizing existing operator assets and radios.
Economically and reliably virtualizing the RAN by distributing functionality to the edge of the network requires a flexible cloud-native platform, open interfaces and sophisticated orchestration. Nokia is using the Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform ® to virtualize RAN elements and deliver operators a 5G Cloud RAN solution.
Transforming the RAN
Nokia and Red Hat worked together to ensure that the resultant 5G Cloud RAN is seamlessly and securely integrated with the underlying OpenShift container-based architecture. In addition to improved network agility, the collaboration accelerates delivery of new radio features and enables infrastructure to be shared with other edge services.
Infrastructure sharing reduces costs, increases service scalability and enables applications to be ported easily throughout the cloud. Using this flexible foundation, operators can easily and rapidly turn-up new services, scale capacity and automate operations while improving customer experience.
Operators are swiftly virtualizing their networks. Software-centric RAN solutions enable operators to move computing power, virtual network elements and applications closer to the end user. Localized sensor and operational data are readily available and actionable at the customer site resulting in faster response times and actions.
To date, most network function virtualization remains in specific silos which makes orchestration, integration and operation more difficult. The efforts by Nokia and Red Hat to develop and deploy 5G RAN functionality in the cloud improves network and application performance and reliability while reducing the cost of deploying enterprise services.
Cloud RAN is real
vRAN is the result of virtualization of several key radio network functions. In a cloud RAN, virtualized RAN elements and attendant orchestration are hosted in the cloud and accessible by multiple cell sites. RAN Intelligent Controller (RIC) is a virtualized 5G optimization technology that adds programmability to an existing or new RAN and enables rapid optimization and configuration. Nokia combines application awareness with radio network awareness to create the Nokia Edge Cloud. Along with Red Hat, Nokia has successfully demonstrated an end-to-end 5G data call using its RAN virtual Distributed Unit (vDU) and virtual Centralized Unit (vCU) running on the Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform®.
The Nokia 5G Cloud RAN solution requires robust, cloud-native infrastructure. Red Hat OpenShift delivers the infrastructure required for containerized vDU and vCU running on general purpose computing platforms. Key features of 5G cloud RAN deployed by Nokia on the Red Hat OpenShift cloud platform include:
● Redundant instances and scaling efficiencies
● Precision time protocol to synchronize timing with sub-millisecond accuracy
● Hardware acceleration channel estimation and detection, forward error correction
● High-performance data plane for programmability and workflow automation
● Small-scale footprint to meet limited space and power requirements
Partnering with Red Hat ensures that operators deploying Nokia cloud RAN functionality for 5G get a reliable, secure and scalable cloud platform that enables flexible configuration and workflow automation. The Red Hat platform makes it easier to deploy redundant instances, scale efficiently and improve isolation for multi-tenant services including network slicing.
Delivering virtualized RAN functionality using an open cloud-native platform, like Red Hat OpenShift, ensures that operators can scale and evolve their networks and manage complex integrations without the need for new hardware. Using Red Hat OpenShift means that operators can extend their clouds uniformly across cell-sites, edge-sites and regional data centers. Having a consistent platform across locations and customers simplifies network management and operations. The result is increased automation, better outcomes and lower costs.
As enterprises become digital, decades of security and trust make operators the preferred providers of complex 5G digital services. As businesses of all sizes move applications and data to the cloud, network providers must be able to meet them there with virtualized, cloud-native network integrations that are just as secure and reliable as their hardwired predecessors. Learn more here.