VMware announced two RAN Intelligent Controllers (RICs), new capabilities for its Telco Cloud Platform RAN, and several key partnerships aimed at helping service providers smoothly transition to Open RAN.
“When it comes to Open RAN, the genie is out of the bottle. The potential benefits of increasing innovation while reducing operational expense are compelling. As such, VMware is pushing to accelerate the transformation of the RAN along with Open RAN principles,” said Sanjay Uppal, senior vice president and general manager, Service Provider and Edge, VMware. “VMware is paving the way for service providers to modernize the RAN so it is programmable and intelligent, built with best-of-breed solutions from a vibrant partner ecosystem.”
The RAN Intelligent Controller (RIC) is a new platform defined by the O-RAN Alliance that abstracts the underlying RAN infrastructure and provides developer APIs for xApps and rApps to program the RAN. VMware announced two RICs that can run independently of each other, or together:
- VMware Centralized RIC, an implementation of the non-real-time RAN Intelligent Controller (non-RT RIC) in the O-RAN Alliance reference architecture. It will manage and host rApps that have control functions with response timing greater than one second.
- VMware Distributed RIC, an implementation of the near-real-time RAN Intelligent Controller (near-RT RIC) in the O-RAN Alliance reference architecture. It will manage and host xApps that have control functions with response timing less than one second, typically on the order of 10’s of milliseconds.
VMware RIC SDKs are expected to be generally available in VMware’s Q4 FY22. VMware RIC is expected to be initially available in VMware’s Q1 FY23.
VMware said its RIC has been engineered to integrate with traditional RAN equipment as well as virtualized RAN network functions independent of them being O-RAN compliant. A large ecosystem of xApps and rApps enables service providers to maximize the benefits of an Open RAN to address their unique requirements and priorities. VMware is preparing to launch a RAN application developer program to help partners jump-start and accelerate the development of xApps and rApps.
The company also cited a number of partners who are already working with VMware to integrate their xApps and/or rApps as microservices on VMware RIC through SDKs, including:
- Cohere Technologies’ Spectrum Multiplier xApp improves spectral efficiency for service providers by as much as 2x with the use of its unique Delay-Doppler channel representation (read the press release).
- Polte’s location xApp pioneers more secure, accurate and global location intelligence for service providers and their customers (read the press release).
- AirHop xApps and rApps support a broad spectrum of use cases, including RAN configuration and operation optimization, interference management, capacity and coverage optimization, and mobility optimization.
- Cellwize RAN intelligence technology and rApps enable backward compatibility alongside O-RAN future proof management and orchestration of multi-vendor networks.
- Intel is a strategic partner as VMware works with service providers to virtualize the RAN. VMware RIC is based on Intel FlexRAN reference architecture, enabling a flexible and programmable platform for software-defined RANs.
“Intel FlexRAN software allows operators transitioning to a cloud-native architecture to run their RAN and AI workloads on the same standard hardware platform as other workloads, from core to edge to access,” said Cristina Rodriguez, vice president of Intel’s Network Edge Group and general manager, Wireless Access Network Division. “VMware RIC, powered with Intel AI and Machine Learning capabilities, supports a wide variety of xApps and rApps that will help operators optimize their network performance, deliver new functions and features, and offer new value-added services.”
New capabilities for VMware Telco Cloud Platform RAN aim to strike a balance between network performance and operational flexibility, including:
- Performance: VMware ESXi delivers real-time performance for RAN workloads.
- Cost reduction: VMware Tanzu for Telco combined with VMware ESXi allows service providers to mix and match various cloud-native RAN workloads and custom 5G applications on the same physical appliance, ideal for open and disaggregated RAN where space is limited at the cell site and the number of sites keeps growing.
- Operational consistency: VMware Telco Cloud Platform RAN provides a common platform and end-to-end automation and orchestration across 5G networks to prevent creating siloed islands of network functions.