Carriers in the cloud: The key pillars of cloud-first RAN orchestration and management

At Qualcomm Technologies, Inc., we engage every day with the world’s leading mobile carriers to support their vision, strategic initiatives, business objectives and the day-to-day of their complex operations. As we learn about their ongoing needs and priorities, one that consistently stands out among the rest is a need for a set of operational tools that can support their cloud expansion into central and regional data centers, plus the ability to scale network application (app) execution nationwide.

Not only is Qualcomm Edgewise Suite a leading public and private cloud-based radio access network (RAN) automation and management platform — designed to accelerate 5G network deployments — but it also enables operators’ effective and seamless network cloud expansions, as well as the ability to scale app execution as needed.

How does Qualcomm Edgewise Suite help telecommunications carriers?

In addition to being cloud-native, microservices-based, fully containerized and Kubernetes-ready, Qualcomm Edgewise Suite architecture is:

• Layered: Separating user interfaces, core platform services, the compute layer and the storage layer. Within these layers, each component can be deployed and scaled independently, for automatically adapting to changing workloads, both horizontally and vertically.
• Service-oriented: Promoting both well-defined and open interfaces between service components. 
  
• Event-driven: With loose-coupling of services, reusability and flexible orchestration.
  
• Vendor-agnostic: Operating with all the major cloud vendors — including AWS, Azure and GCP — as well as VMWare TCA, OpenStack-based private clouds, OpenShift-based private clouds and more. 
  

At the same time, Edgewise can take advantage of specific infrastructure and platform services (e.g., for database as a service, storage services, message bus as a service and more), which are provided as part of the cloud infrastructure, whether public or private.

With key cloud components — such as AKS, managed databases and a managed message bus — it preserves the elasticity required for moving between various cloud vendors, designed for seamless operation in even the most complex multi-vendor environments, while reducing operational overheads.

Plus, it leverages Cloud Native Computing Foundation (CNCF)-trusted open-source tools to operate, orchestrate and manage deployments in the cloud.

Understanding the cloud-native approach

At Qualcomm Technologies, we put to practice a cloud-native approach that’s end-to-end; from design and development, to build, deployment and operation. Our advanced packaging and automation processes, which leverage a leading agile DevOps technology, enable us to develop and release new features on a weekly basis. We have developed automated and containerized development and test environments for the engineering teams working on customer deployment architectures, as well as on continual delivery (CD) processes. 

Moreover, we have designed advanced tooling that enables our developers to build, test and package artifacts in isolation. Afterward, each service or component is shipped to operations through externalized configuration for automated testing and deployment. 

Qualcomm Edgewise Suite in the real world shows proven results 

The Qualcomm Edgewise Suite is currently deployed all across the world and in leading public cloud environments, powering cloud-based RAN automation and management in multi-cloud, plus hybrid public and private cloud environments. 

Telefónica Deutschland, for example, selected the Qualcomm Edgewise Suite for its cloudification journey. The migration took place in a fully managed Kubernetes environment and entailed a complete migration to Telefonica’s Google Cloud Platform (GCP). Another example comes from Globe Telecom, which migrated its network configuration and automation to the public cloud with the Qualcomm Edgewise Suite.

A well-built cloud means accelerated innovation and enhanced network performance

Qualcomm Edgewise Suite enables the highest levels of elasticity, scalability, flexibility and performance, which means operators are empowered with:

• Unmatched RAN architecture flexibility with multigenerational support for Open RAN, vRAN and traditional RAN.
• Efficient and flexible network resource allocation and management.
• Accelerated innovation and faster time to market through rapid development for multiple use cases.
• Enhanced Open RAN and vRAN readiness and operations.
• Increased operational efficiencies that reduce operating costs.

As a result, businesses can profoundly improve network performance as they accelerate innovation thanks to the intelligence provided by Qualcomm Edgewise Suite.