Issue link: https://hub.radisys.com/i/1302511
radisys.com 30 Radisys Series — Who Disaggregated My RAN? eBook Chapter 7: Virtualized RAN: Closer than You Think In previous blogs in this "Who Disaggregated My RAN? series, we have looked at the benefits of a disaggregated Open RAN, including the growth of an ecosystem to support the deployment of an Open RAN. We have also looked at how these disaggregated solutions compare in terms of performance. Naturally, as we consider the benefits of using commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) hardware for Open RAN solutions, the next logical cost savings option comes in the area of virtualization. Here the term virtualization is used to mean a VNF (Virtualized Network Function) or a CNF (Cloud-native Network Function). What are these VNFs and CNFs anyways? Let's dig into this topic further. The Many Benefits of a Virtualized RAN Solution A virtualized implementation means dynamic scaling in and scaling out of functions as per the demand (capacity, throughput and load balancing). This is in contrast to the traditional approach of spending more CapEx on proprietary hardware in order to add capacity. Also, as the software architecture becomes more flexible to support multiple deployment scenarios, operators can avoid buying different hardware and software configurations to support different deployment scenarios. Thus, the overall savings in TCO that can be achieved with virtualized RAN solutions are very attractive for operators. ETSI NFV Architecture The concept of a virtual machine isn't new and has been used in both Enterprise and Telecom. However, the telecom industry has many stringent requirements with less tolerance for down-time, so there had been considerable skepticism about telecom solutions working well in virtualized environments. In 2012, an initiative was launched by operators to create virtualized solutions for telecom industry. A whitepaper was released that addressed meeting performance and resiliency requirements, and the European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI) began to develop standards that laid the foundation for networks nodes to be implemented in virtualized environments. ETSI continues to work on this topic, with many releases of specifications to ensure standardization and interoperability in virtualization.