Red Hat has developed a reference architecture of its OpenStack Platform for ZTE’s XCloud hardware targeted at speeding up the deployment of 5G technologies for carriers.

The Red Hat work is targeted at helping telecommunication operators deploy virtual network functions (VNFs) on the Red Hat OpenStack Platform running on ZTE’s XCloud hardware. Red Hat explained that internal testing showed this arrangement could speed up the integration time for operators on ZTE hardware by up to 500%.

Hanen Garcia, global telco solutions manager at Red Hat, explained in an email to SDxCentral that the ZTE work was similar to what the vendor has done in validating the platform for other companies. He did add that ZTE has validated at least 20 VNFs.

ZTE is also using Red Hat’s OpenStack for the integrated environment of VNF services in its Openlab locations in Najing, China, and Brussels, Belgium. The China-based vendor had already completed VNF certification on Red Hat’s OpenStack Platform 13, which launched in mid-2018, and plans to do the same for the most recent OpenStack Platform 16 that launched earlier this year. The latest Red Hat update included a focus on on simplifying the deployment and management of infrastructure running on OpenStack.

"We plan to continue to work with Red Hat to help global operators build more secure, more open, and more cost-effective cloud core networks," noted Chen Xinyu, GM of telecom cloud and core network at ZTE, in a statement.

The two had previously worked on integrating Red Hat’s OpenStack platform with ZTE’s VNFs, which was provoked by a mutual telecommunications operator customer. That operator was thought to be China Unicom, which had previously announced it was working with Nokia on a cloud-native core network that used Red Hat’s OpenStack.

Red Hat is also providing its OpenStack platform to Japan’s Rakuten Mobile for its ongoing 4G LTE and 5G deployment.

The move also continues what has been an increased focus by vendors and cloud providers on helping operators deploy their 5G networks. Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE), for instance, last month unveiled a software stack for the 5G core that can run across any cloud platform.