VMware added Nokia to a growing list of telecommunication infrastructure vendors validating their cloud radio access network (RAN) platforms to run on the VMware Telco Cloud Platform RAN. The move follows a similar validation done with Ericsson earlier this year.

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 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. Raghav Sahgal, president for Nokia’s Cloud and Network Services (CNS), recently said during an interview at a Goldman Sachs investor conference that this challenge remains significant.

“The reality is that all of our customers will have a multitude of hardware, devices, and capabilities and infrastructure,” Saghal said. “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.”

The work also builds on long-standing work between the two vendors. This includes past interoperability testing designed to make it easier for service providers to run Nokia virtualized and containerized network functions (CNFs) on VMware cloud infrastructure.

Both vendors are also core to Dish Network’s greenfield 5G network build. That deployment has provided significant feedback for vendors in deploying cloud-native 5G network equipment.

“We definitely have had our learnings with Dish and the scale and the speed at which they are looking to deploy,” Misbah Mahmoodi, senior director of product marketing at VMware, recently explained. “We’re taking a lot of that feedback and putting it back into the product, in terms of what needs to be done from an optimization perspective.”

Ericsson gained similar validation earlier this year in a move to get its cloud native-based 5G core to work as CNFs running on top of VMware’s Telco Cloud Platform. The collaboration was geared to provide operators with three different infrastructure platform and orchestration options for running 4G LTE and 5G networks concurrently.

VMware also plugged in similar validation with Samsung integrate its network core, edge, and RAN offerings with its Telco Cloud Platform.

VMware certification efforts have been cited by ABI Research, which recently touted the vendor as a market leader. ABI Research analyst Kangrui Ling described VMware’s multi-vendor certification program as “diverse and robust,” and helped propel the overall platform to a slight market lead over rival Red Hat.

VMware initially rolled out its overarching Telco Cloud Platform last year, which itself was an expansion of its reorganized and repacked stack of technologies for network operators. That initial work also came under VMware’s previous owner Dell Technologies, and prior to the more recent acquisition attempt by Broadcom.

VMware recently updated the platform, adding new features targeting 5G deployment models and sticking a 2.0 tag on the end of it.