Ericsson announced that its Cloud RAN solution can support and run on Red Hat OpenShift. This will give communications service providers  more flexibility in their choice of cloud platform

The latest version of Red Hat OpenShift, which leverages support for 4th Gen Intel® Xeon® Scalable processors with vRAN boost, will help accelerate the availability of Cloud RAN advancements, enabling improved network capacity, performance and energy efficiency for service providers. This validation enables CSPs to benefit from the advantages brought by single-server configuration with built-in acceleration, including a single point of administration and simplicity in setup.

Integrating Ericsson Cloud RAN with Red Hat OpenShift means CSPs can have more flexibility in choosing their cloud platform. Additionally, by opting for a single server solution, they can realize a smaller site footprint and leaner deployment, all of which can result in a better return on investment.

Ericsson and Red Hat have been collaborating since 2019 to evolve, validate, and test the interoperability of Ericsson’s Cloud RAN solution with Red Hat OpenShift Platform, the industry’s leading hybrid cloud application platform powered by Kubernetes. The two companies are now strengthening this collaboration by optimizing Red Hat OpenShift for bare metal deployment on a single server. The Cloud RAN collaboration with Red Hat is conducted in close cooperation with Intel, one of Ericsson’s technology partners.

The validation of Red Hat’s OpenShift with Ericsson’s Cloud RAN solution shows Ericsson taking another key steppingstone towards achieving its multi-cloud strategy, with the vision that Ericsson Cloud RAN can be run on any cloud platform.

Matteo Fiorani, Head of Distributed Unit, Infrastructure and Security at Ericsson, says: “Together with partners such as Red Hat, Ericsson is adding solutions that deliver value and simplify the journey for our customers while bringing the flexibility enabled by cloud-native and disaggregated radio access networks. Building on years of collaboration across more than 20 projects spanning core networks, network management, and Business & Operations Support Systems, and now extended with Cloud RAN, the Ericsson and Red Hat partnership offers solutions that will boost the confidence of service providers in accelerating network transformation and reducing risks.”

Honoré LaBourdette, Vice President, Telco, Media, Entertainment & Edge Ecosystem at Red Hat, says: “Combining our unique strengths, Red Hat and Ericsson continue working to support CSPs on their journey to build flexible and open multi-vendor networks. We are here to provide choice and agility and deliver scalable network architecture for CSPs to deliver long term business value, including in their transformation to Cloud RAN.”

The value of pre-integration

Through the pre-integrated solutions, with Ericsson Cloud RAN validated on Red Hat OpenShift, Ericsson is addressing the needs of service providers for solutions that fit their unique requirements, supporting investments in innovative solutions and businesses. A valuable aspect of pre-integration is how it simplifies the deployment of increasingly complex solutions and technology.

Having a solution that is already pre-integrated means a shorter time-to-market (TTM), lower cost of integration and more reliable performance. Moreover, Ericsson assures life cycle management of Ericsson Cloud RAN with pre-integrated solutions, which brings another key benefit to the CSPs. These factors lower the barriers for CSPs and streamline network deployment, allowing them to be agile in response to customer needs.

The collaboration with Red Hat shows Ericsson’s commitment to industrializing and scaling its Cloud RAN solution by widening the portfolio of solutions integrated with it. It builds on Ericsson’s relationship with Red Hat and, by strengthening the Cloud RAN ecosystem, represents another step toward giving CSPs freedom of choice and flexibility when selecting a container as a service (CaaS) platform.