Originally published in EDGE Industry Review
Mar 6, 2023 | Abhishek Jadhav
EnterpriseWeb and Intel, Red Hat, Fortinet, Keysight, KX and Tech Mahindra have presented a jointly-developed 5G RAN network with optimization capabilities. By placing more security functions at the network edge, the companies say the network can process data packets with less resource demand and energy consumption.
“The multi-vendor integrated solution goes beyond typical proofs-of-concept to demonstrate how dynamic and continuous optimizations can support low-latency, high-performance, and energy-efficient 5G RAN networks at scale,” says Dave Duggal, the founder and CEO, EnterpriseWeb. “These are key attributes for edge deployments and Telecom sustainability initiatives,” he adds.
The test solution uses software-defined infrastructure and Intel’s network and edge solution portfolio.
The solution includes:
- A secure edge gateway with Intel Xeon Scalable processors.
- Intel Ethernet 800 Series Controllers.
- Intel FlexRAN reference software.
- Intel Smart Edge.
This system exposes standard interfaces over low-level network infrastructure through programmable infrastructure. It offers smart orchestrators the ability to configure physical and virtual components. This enables optimized traffic patterns with reduced energy consumption in response to changing conditions or attacks.
The co-developed edge gateway, which belongs to a category of products referred to by Gartner as a Secure Access Service Edge (SASE) gateway, is a cloud-native network security solution that combines firewalls, intrusion prevention systems and web gateways. By virtue of where the new gateway is placed in a wireless network, the devices play an important role in 5G RAN networks, enabling secure communication between different 5G components, such as base stations, radio controllers and core networks.
“We are pleased to collaborate across a robust partner ecosystem to support energy-efficient multi-vendor solutions at the network edge using Red Hat OpenShift, offering a consistent cloud-native application development platform for 5G and RAN use cases,” says Honoré LaBourdette, the vice president of telco, media, entertainment and edge ecosystem at Red Hat.
Earlier this year, KX announced that it was integrating its time series database and real-time analytics engine with EnterpriseWeb’s orchestration platform. The solution aims to solve one of the core challenges of network service providers — managing networks at scale with as few humans as possible.
