Spotlight on Tech

Rakuten Cloud and Intel simplify AI & Analytics services

by
Mehran Hadipour
VP - BD & Tech Alliances
Rakuten Symphony
August 21, 2024
4
minute read

At Rakuten Symphony, we are proud of our long standing partnership with Intel, whom we count on to provide the core technology of our telco-ready Rakuten Cloud platform.

Through that partnership, we have accomplished some truly exciting things, including developing the cloud foundation upon which a tier 1 service provider implemented Data Lakehouse-based analytics services — a use case we documented in a white paper published on the Intel Industry Solution Builders ecosystem website.

Cloud services for analytics at scale

As the white paper highlights, deploying private cloud services for analytics at scale is no small feat. It necessitates a complex interplay of hardware, software, and application expertise. This is where Rakuten Cloud-Native Platform (CNP) shines.

The operator sought to create an agile, scalable, and automated analytics-as-a-service platform. To that end, they built a data Lakehouse using open-source software including Delta Lake, Apache Spark, Kubeflow and TensorFlow to name a few.

Rakuten CNP was used to deliver operational efficiency so that cloud services could be delivered or managed by the data scientists that would use the service on demand who were not cloud service experts. The platform enabled the service provider to deliver a self-service, performance-optimized and highly available cloud environment for the data scientists.

Build and operate telco apps at the edge

Rakuten CNP has several key components that work together to streamline the entire cloud deployment process, from provisioning to management. At its core is a Kubernetes distribution optimized for running demanding workloads. In addition, the platform includes Rakuten Cloud-Native Storage (CNS), which provides stateful, app-aware storage capabilities, ensuring optimal performance and data management.

Rakuten CNP also includes an Application Workflow Manager that simplifies the deployment and management of complex application pipelines. This combination of technologies empowers service providers to efficiently build and operate data-intensive applications at the core or at the edge.

Processing performance from Intel

The servers used in the solution — based on 4th Gen Intel Xeon Scalable processors which feature integrated accelerators and high-performance cores — delivered the computational muscle needed for demanding analytics workloads.

For full details of the platform hardware and software, check out the white paper.

As the demand for real-time insights continues to grow, this white paper provides a roadmap for service providers who need to build out analytics services that demand an automated cloud platform like Rakuten CNP.

Spotlight on Tech