Nokia recently validated its cloud radio access network (RAN) to run on VMware’s Telco Cloud RAN platform, highlighting a growing push by traditional telecom vendors to dispel concerns by telecom operators looking to run their 5G networks on cloudified platforms.

The validation aligns interoperability between running Nokia’s Cloud RAN platform, including virtualized and disaggregated central units (CUs) and distributed units (DUs) on the VMware platform. The VMware Telco Cloud Platform can then be run on top of Nokia’s AirFrame Open Edge Servers.

This validation work makes it easier for telecom operators to install and run these systems in a production environment on their chosen cloud provider.

“We need to be as cloud agnostic as possible, and that in scope means that we need to make sure that there's nothing to hinder us to run on VMware’s cloud or one based on Red Hat, on [Amazon Web Services], on Google, on Microsoft Azure, or even on a managed version of Red Hat with IBM,” Jane Rygaard, head of wireless networks at Nokia, told SDxCentral in a recent interview.

Rygaard explained that while the platform validation is important, there are much stricter performance and timing requirements for running the radio software in virtualized environments.

“A radio is built for layer-one scheduling and the performance needed means that you're not going to wait for having your call happen,” Rygaard said. “If you wait too long to ask for the processes or the capacity within the cloud, well then the call is gone. Then we have broken the connection that we had. This real-time aspect can be really, really difficult if the clouds are not mature enough to be able to cope with that.”

Rygaard’s comments echo those of her co-worker Raghav Sahgal, president for Nokia’s Cloud and Network Services (CNS). Sahgal stated at a recent investor conference that “the reality is that all of our customers will have a multitude of hardware, devices, and capabilities and infrastructure.”

“And so what we do is to make sure that we create software and business logic that works against any infrastructure type, be it RAN, O-RAN, virtual RAN … any type from any vendor that may come out in the future,” Saghal said.

Some of this work is being targeted by the RAN intelligent controller (RIC), which operates in the middle of an open RAN deployment as a kind of linkage to the wider network. It allows operators to deploy xApps (near-real-time) and rApps (non-real-time) that then allow operators to design and control RAN functions, providing administrative RAN sovereignty over functions that are typically implemented as proprietary features on base stations.

Nokia, like most of its rivals, has been working over the past several years to validate their cloud platforms to work on various public and private cloud environments. This is necessary to cover the different agreements operators have with different cloud providers.

But, that work can be tricky as each underlying cloud environment can be slightly different.

“I wish that all clouds were the same, but the learning for us is finding how much can I make common,” Rygaard said. “When I look at my software architectures, when I look at my adaptations, I want to have as much common as possible.”

This sentiment was echoed from the other side by Andrew De La Torre, group VP of technology at Oracle Communications.

“Every operator we’re working with so far is choosing to build almost a unique cloud environment to them and that is creating a lot of complexity because the initial deployments are all learning experiences because they’re all unique,” De La Torre, said in an interview with SDxCentral. “And I do think one of the things that we could do better as an industry and as equipment providers … is to try and drive a bit more uniformity in that space and try and get some more standardized models to help operators with their deployments.”

Rygaard explained that for Nokia this comes down to tooling each adaption to each specific cloud platform so that the end product can maintain the strict performance standards for 5G RAN deployments. “We are trying to minimize the level for each cloud that we do,” she added.

This also applies down to the actual physical layer of a 5G RAN. While a cloud ecosystem can virtualize or abstract away higher layers of a 5G network deployment, there are still physical components that need to be taken into account.

Rygaard noted that the cloud ecosystem has helped physical infrastructure providers better understand and take advantage of the ability to scale out the centralized components of a 5G deployment, but that runs into a physical barrier in the real world.

“Clouds can always just scale out, they can get bigger and bigger, unless the cloud is running on a cell site on cloud RAN, and then physics says that I still need a little person in a car driving out to put a new server in,” Rygaard said.

Nokia’s validation work with VMware underscores the level of ongoing collaboration both the cloud and telecom side of this equation are having to engage with in order to provide a superior end product for operators.

“In the end it becomes a partnership, not only between Nokia and a cloud provider, but with the customer,” Rygaard added. “What is their vision and what is their setup, and that is moving a little bit away from saying, ‘just give me what you have,’ and it becomes more of a co-creation between all of us.”