Two of the most complex – and demanding – use cases for telecom cloud environments are 5G core and radio access networks (RAN).
Optimizing the signal and packet processing, and throughput of these 5G workloads requires a tight integration between cloud-native software and hardware. Dell Technologies has taken a leadership position in validating the performance of optimized hardware and software configurations for Telco workloads using the Dell Open Telecom Ecosystem Lab (OTEL).
Rakuten Cloud has been collaborating with Dell to develop Validated Telecom Blueprints – reports that describe a hardware-software end-to-end solution optimized for telecom workloads. The first blueprint was published in August 2024 and focused on validating a telecom cloud solution for a variety of workloads. Now we’re focusing on a validated solution for 5G core and RAN.
The new Validated Telecom Blueprint defines a cloud-native solution that includes Rakuten Cloud-Native Platform (CNP) software running on Dell PowerEdge servers designed for demanding workloads targeted at specific use cases from the RAN, edge, and core that are part of a validated design. The Rakuten Cloud software that is part of the solution includes:
• Rakuten Cloud Cloud-Native Platform (CNP) is a Kubernetes-based telco-ready virtualization platform. Rakuten CNP features an intuitive, declarative interface with automation of resource auto-discovery, intent-based policy modeling, and advanced placement algorithms and networking and storage enhancements designed to support stateful and network intensive workloads.
• Rakuten Cloud-Native Storage (CNS) delivers automated, stateful storage for edge and cloud data center implementations. Kubernetes was initially designed for stateless workloads. But many important applications are stateful and these workloads need a storage layer that is application-aware to accelerate data management, provisioning and data protection. Rakuten CNS offers industry-leading application aware data protection functionality, and is fully automated to reduce recovery time, migration time, and data corruption.
• Rakuten Cloud-Native Orchestrator (CNO) controls and enables many of the automation functions built into the Rakuten Cloud solution. This software orchestrates and manages the lifecycles of bare-metal infrastructure, third-party appliances, Cloud-native Network Functions (CNFs), Virtual Network Functions (VNFs) and service chains. Rakuten CNO context-aware work-flow manager features built-in logging, monitoring and a policy engine, so that it can create closed loop automation.
The robust and scalable Dell PowerEdge XR8000 and PowerEdge R760 servers are described in detail in the Validated Blueprint, but in brief it includes Intel® Xeon® Scalable Processor-based Dell PowerEdge servers for the cloud, core, edge and RAN. The solution is also comprised of Dell PowerSwitch switches and uses 100GbE Intel® Ethernet Network Adapter E810 for network connections ensuring low latency and high performance.
Dell set up this solution in OTEL to verify its ability to provide the agility and scalability needed for disaggregated, software-based 5G RAN and Core networks.
The validation test plan ensured that the solution delivered the following:
In OTEL, Dell experts validated the solution functionality including the architecture and underlying components, automated deployment and scalability over multiple applications and network functions.
The 5G RAN and core are some of the most demanding aspects of a 5G network, making it critical that a telecom cloud solution deliver reliable and high performance. With this Dell Validated Blueprint, our telecom customers have a complete cloud solution with documented performance and automation feature set.
To read the entire Validated Blueprint, download it from the Dell website.
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