The open, disaggregated network trend has undeniably made its mark over the past decade. Many service providers are migrating from traditional, proprietary, monolithic platforms to disaggregated form-factors and functionality. Open networking offers them speeded-up service deployment, agile innovation, pay-as-you-grow upgrades, and greater choice in vendors. For RAN operators, disaggregation helps improve operational efficiency and reduce costs.
Using software to unify network management in the disaggregated network
But the benefits of openness and disaggregation come at a price: a single, unified network management plane is needed to tie things together and make the network function as a cohesive whole: unified Fault, Configuration, Administration, Performance, and Security (FCAPS), in essence. Network management and control is one of the critical pain points for operators considering Open RAN, and legacy management systems lack the necessary standards compliance and data processing heft.
5G networks are more complex than previous generations. This is due to architectural differences as well as to the number of functional pieces from multiple vendors in the network, and to the huge amounts of network data these devices collectively generate. And the network data itself is messy, consisting of thousands or even millions of data points, drawn from multiple vendors’ devices and needing to be harmonized before it can be used for meaningful analytics. Because every vendor in the Open RAN ecosystem codes their log files with different formats, simply collecting them for analysis will fail. For example, in order to correlate, analyze, and draw meaningful inferences from alarms, all alarm fields across all vendors need to be identified, collected, and normalized so that they match.
As networks inevitably become more disaggregated for efficiency, there’s an increasingly urgent need for a unified management and control view. Operators should have full visibility into their network data, especially in the context of AI optimization. Therefore, they need their vendors to provide the right tools and collaborative support as they seek to streamline management and simplify operations in this changing landscape, bridging the gap between a heterogeneous, disaggregated network, its data, and the means to manage it. This means software-defined management.
Using expertise to build the best RAN solution
Choosing the best software is just a step on the journey to a fully operational RAN solution. The system must also be customized, configured, integrated, tested, and installed—critical processes that demand technical expertise and skilled customer engagement. Creating a single pane of glass for a complex, heterogeneous network requires precise customization based on a deep understanding of the customer’s unique network environment. Thus, the best solution for Open RAN deployments is a combination of the right software and the expert services needed to do the job right.
A solution like this was once considered impossible to obtain—just like a unicorn—something that only exists in myths and legends. Until now.
Where’s the unicorn?
The unicorn of network management is a perfect combination that unifies FCAPS for traditional or Open RAN. This combination is cutting-edge software in the form of Virtuora® MC, with Fujitsu’s expert RAN integration services, as well as our extensive lab facilities. In sum, we offer everything needed to quickly unify RAN management.
Partnership that delivers the desired outcome
Our team of experts can ensure the best possible outcome through our consultancy, customization, integration, deployment, and maintenance services, whether your network is greenfield or brownfield. We can help you to continue utilizing your legacy systems (whether they are applications on the northbound or devices on the southbound) while you continue evolving towards open networking at your desired speed. Our engagement model is a step-by-step process that ensures the management and control system is precisely integrated into the network, and we can provide full-lifecycle solution management as the network, customer demands, and technology evolve.
Precise customization & integration for wide-ranging use cases
We support wide-ranging use cases and can integrate an operator’s in-house apps, orchestrator, or data lake—or you can use all or part of Fujitsu’s own options in these areas. Here are some hypothetical examples:
- Brownfield network with multiple partner systems for RAN management, only partially integrated with upper-level OSS: Vendors’ current offerings for OAM/FCAPS are largely vendor-specific. Fujitsu can help overcome a challenge like this by consolidating existing vendors into a single operations environment, easily integrating with upper-level systems and providing a path to efficiently introduce additional vendors.
- Greenfield deployment: Virtuora MC unifies Open RAN multivendor operations and simplifies integration into SMO/OSS functions such as RIC, network slicing, and orchestration.
- Introducing new apps: For operators with brownfield networks, Virtuora MC can be used as part of a combined offering to quickly enable applications across multiple vendors, while providing a path for rapid introduction of apps across all vendors and efficiently expanding the choice of RAN suppliers.
Virtuora MC’s unique capabilities
Virtuora MC functions like the network’s nerve center, and goes beyond unified management with its unique visualization capabilities. These capabilities are powerful tools in their own right, especially when it comes to systems integration. Look out for more information on visualization in a future blog.
Virtuora MC Highlights
- Network Element Onboarding (NEO): Driver and adapters work together to normalize RAN data, translating specific vendor data sets to 3GPP
- Configuration management: Uses 3GPP format with support for vendor extensions
- RAN+ ready fault management: Uses either 3GPP or TMF format
- Performance management: Combines all values captured from all vendors’ xNFs
- Unified data model (API): Absorbs changes in RAN vendor data models and provides a consistent, operational, extensible interface to the network
- High resiliency: Allows changes without breaking
- Unifies/normalizes RAN data flow: Data is normalized between any RAN, xNFs, and rApps/RIC/SMO for access, analysis, and network automation functions
Live network insights & actions
The customizable visualization dashboard is at the heart of Virtuora MC’s user experience. Protected with secure role-based access and personalized experience, the dashboard goes beyond the typical Fault, Configuration, Administration, Performance, and Security (FCAPS) to provide live updates on network status and drill-down views for more focused information.
Agile development: fast, targeted innovation
Virtuora MC owes much of its value to the Agile development model, a method of developing software that focuses on delivering high-quality working software frequently and consistently, while minimizing project overhead and increasing business value.
Successful Agile development is built on a mindset that emphasizes continuous, rapid-fire delivery of valuable software to fulfill customers’ most immediate needs. To accomplish this, the team builds responsiveness into the software intentionally, starting with flexible architecture that can easily accommodate changes in requirements necessary to meet customers’ needs as they change. We’ll discuss agile development in more detail in an upcoming blog. Virtuora MC (short for “Mobility Controller”) simplifies operations by unifying multivendor, multi-technology RAN management in the new open, disaggregated landscape. Virtuora MC enables control of the multivendor Open RAN from a single software system with a single visualization GUI.
Virtuora MC’s architecture is uniquely designed for the rigors of Open RAN integration, management, and control. It consists of three functional segments: one for common management functions, another for the applications platform, and another for Network Element (NE) onboarding and southbound adapters.
A network management myth becomes a reality
With 5G Open RAN, operators must be able to orchestrate, control and manage a wide range of vendors and devices, and they need unified FCAPS rather than a patchwork solution. A Virtuora MC solution, fully integrated and customized, delivers unified, simplified multivendor network operations and management, normalizes network data, enables faster app integration, and overall, accelerates 5G deployment.
