Given that the Open RAN market is set for significant growth in the next three years, it’s no wonder there are more and more hardware choices available. One hardware must-have is the accelerator card.
Open RAN accelerators boost performance by sharing the CPU workload
The Open RAN accelerator boosts, or “accelerates” performance at a vital point in the network: the Virtual Distributed Unit (vDU). The accelerator achieves this by taking up part of the processing load from the CPU.
Here’s why that matters. CPU resources are more expensive and consume more energy. Therefore, it makes sense to offload as much processing as possible from the CPU to the accelerator.
I’m Rob Hughes, Head of Wireless Marketing, here for an open dialogue about choosing the right Open RAN accelerator architecture.
Two accelerator types: inline and lookaside
Not all Open RAN accelerators are created equal. There are two types on the market: inline accelerators and lookaside accelerators. You’re probably wondering – what’s the difference, and which is better?
Well, both types elevate DU performance, but they differ in what types of Layer 1 processing they handle. This includes critical processes like modulation, equalizing, and beam weighting.
Lookaside accelerators only relieve the CPU of Forward Error Correction tasks, while the CPU acts as the master controller for Layer 1 processing, and the CPU continues to perform most Layer 1 tasks. By contrast, inline accelerators intercept and process almost all of the Layer 1 data, before it reaches the CPU.
Is an inline or lookaside accelerator better?
Since the inline type performs a wider range of processing tasks, it can offload a lot more of the CPU’s workload, providing a more significant performance boost. In addition, inline accelerators allow Mobile Network Operators (MNOs) to scale the compute resources used for Layer 1 processing independently from those used for Layer 2 and 3 processing, which results in a more optimal use of computing resources.
So, what’s the benefit of a lookaside accelerator in comparison to an inline accelerator?
If you’re working with small, low-traffic sites, lookaside accelerators may offer some advantages, such as lower power consumption.
However, only a few vendors offer lookaside accelerators, and some are supplied packaged together with the CPU. This kind of all-in-one solution might prove beneficial in terms of simplifying installation or inventory management.
By contrast, inline accelerators are available from a wide range of vendors, and they offer greater flexibility and faster innovation because of that. For medium and high-capacity sites, inline accelerators also offer other clear advantages:
- Lower TCO
- Higher capacity
- Energy efficiency
- Scalability
- Flexibility
- Better delay performance.
Based on these advantages, we think inline accelerators have the advantage over lookaside accelerators in many deployment scenarios.
Let us help figure out which accelerator is best for you
Regardless of which Open RAN accelerator you prefer, you know Fujitsu is always ready to engage in open dialogue about what’s best for your network. Reach out to us, and let’s keep the dialogue about Open RAN going.
