Rakuten and Juniper Discuss the Management of O-RAN Platforms | Juniper Global Summit 2022

0:07 Hello, I'm Raj Yavatkar, Chief Technology  Officer at Juniper Networks. With the 5G  

0:14 deployments, one of the new developments is  the emergence of Open RAN, ORAN architecture  

0:21 that desegregates the vertically integrated  systems for ORAN into multiple components,  

0:28 such as RU, DU, CU, SMO and so on, which are  interconnected by interoperable interfaces. So,  

0:36 we can integrate them together into a complete  solution. That has huge advantages for the service  

0:41 providers, because first of all, it creates a  thriving open ecosystem of application providers,  

0:46 which can provide agility, automation, AI, ML  based experiences for service provider customers,  

0:53 and service provider operations. At Juniper,  we are committed to making the ORAN ecosystem  

0:58 successful and are contributing to that by  providing our own open interoperable components.  

1:06 So, today's my pleasure to introduce and  welcome Sushil Rawat, who manages the  

1:12 ran platform at Rakuten. So Sushil, thank  you for joining me. Good to see you again. 

1:18 Thank you, Raj. Thanks for inviting  me for the conversation today. 

1:22 So, one of the things, as I said, you are doing  Sushil at Rakuten, is that you are truly a pioneer  

1:28 and ground doing some groundbreaking work in  terms of bringing Open RAN architecture to the  

1:33 market. Can you tell me a little bit about your  vision for ORAN and how do you plan to achieve it? 

1:41 We have, we have done a lot of work  on ORAN deployment in Japan. And when,  

1:48 whenever there is a new technology introduction,  it is always, you know who is going to deliver it,  

1:55 how is it going work? So ,operator have all these  natural questions, how the, how the technologies  

2:01 goes to market, right? ORAN has been around.  A lot of standards has been done for quite  

2:06 some time. Now, you know, I would say a, a, a  decent amount of work has gone into it, but to,  

2:13 for a technology to be available, to operate,  it has to come together as a complete solution.  

2:19 And that is what we have been doing. That is  what we have been trying to master over the  

2:24 period of few, you know, last few years where we  are doing, we are doing this deployment in Japan,  

2:29 to basically take this technology, harden,  it, deploy it, make it mature enough for for  

2:36 other operators to, to go and adopt. And I think we have, we have been  

2:41 successful in doing that, so far. We have,  we have deployed a, a large amount of sites  

2:46 using over technology on 4G and 5G, running  commercial network and showing performance,  

2:52 which are equal or better than the traditional  offering that we have in the market today.  

2:58 So, we we definitely see that ORAN is now mature  enough for, for most of the operators to adopt.  

3:06 And we are also seeing that traction coming from  the market, a lot of Brownfield operators and,  

3:11 and Greenfield operators are welcoming  and adopting ORAN as a technology. 

3:17 So, I think you said it well that there are  certain challenges in making ORAN happen that  

3:23 you simply have overcome. So, one example  of such a challenge, I like to point out  

3:28 is that if you take a distribution unit, make it  a ODU and want to run it on a general purpose,  

3:33 X 86 hardware, it's easier said than done,  right? There are lots of challenges with  

3:38 respect to orchestration, life cycle management.  So can you say a little bit about how you are  

3:44 able to achieve that? And the second part of my  question would be, how do you plan to show other  

3:50 operators the way to, towards achieving that? Yes. So, I think that is a very genuine concern  

3:58 and you know, a very confusing questions  to be honest, you know, because  

4:05 at the same time ORAN promises that  standard off the shelf hardware can be used,  

4:10 which a lot of operator appreciate and want to  do. And at the same time from, for some reason,  

4:16 it is being questioned that, you know, X86 off  the shelf, hardware is not as efficient as,  

4:21 as it should be for ran kind of a use case where  there's lots of thousands of sites being deployed.  

4:26 And there are concern, you know, pertaining  to OPEX and CapEx of, of such hardware’s  

4:32 which, which are genuine concern to an extent.  What we have done is we have, we have pushed the  

4:37 envelope of deploying video on such hardware.  So a simple metrics of, of efficiency is,  

4:45 you know, cost versus what we deliver, right? So, number of sites deployed over X86  

4:53 hardware versus number of sites delivered over a  traditional hardware. That is one aspect of simple  

4:59 KPEX measurement. And the second aspect is how  do we manage the manageability of open hardware,  

5:05 become a little bit more complicated because  there is no one party which manages it now. So,  

5:10 what we have done is we have integrated not just  the RAN piece on our X86 platform. What we have  

5:16 done is we have also worked on cloud architecture,  which does provide a strong and scalable  

5:22 manageability of our standard hardware and  combination of these two technologies, which is  

5:28 I mean, specifically cloud is, is very well proven  and widely used all over the IT technologies,  

5:34 right? Our it industry now taking that  mature technology and making it together  

5:39 bringing it together into ORAN as a technology and  use that for life cycle management. So two aspect,  

5:45 basically one is cost versus performance. And  second is manageability. Both these aspects  

5:52 have been addressed and we have been successful in  addressing that in Japan. And now we are trying to  

5:57 expand it and, and, you know, let  others be benefited out of it. 

6:02 So to get others to adopt this particular  architecture, as well as what solution or  

6:09 platform you are building, you also need  to have a very thriving open ecosystem.  

6:15 So what is your vision for that? How do  you make such a open ecosystem happen? 

6:21 So, one major aspect for bringing a ecosystem  together is the conflict of interest. You know  

6:27 a lot of traditional vendors have end-to-end  offering, or at least acquired this end to end  

6:33 offering over the period of time, which kind  of restrict them to work with third parties,  

6:38 which are probably specialized and provide more  benefits onto certain areas. Take an example of  

6:43 Juniper, for that matter, right? You, you have a  strong capability in IP and, and front hall and,  

6:49 you know, overall cloud-native routing stack some  other companies which have end-to-end stack may  

6:56 have a conflict of interest there. However, we,  as, as symphony, as Rakuten and are basically  

7:03 providing a platform where companies can come  together, our ecosystem partners can come together  

7:09 and we offer services together. We are  specialized. We have specialized ourself into  

7:14 RAN domain including hardware and software. Also, we have a comprehensive offering of  

7:21 automation tools, you know, which,  which integrates into a marketplace.  

7:26 And then we are working with suppliers like  Juniper and others, two IP domain. And also  

7:32 are you become a very significant challenge  for ORAN because multiple bands, right? So we  

7:38 are enabling that ecosystem by co-investing. Other  operators are, are becoming together and investing  

7:44 into developing those radios. So, we do see ORAN  ecosystem getting mature rapidly in last few  

7:52 years. This was not the growth for last five, six  years, but in last one or two years, the ecosystem  

7:57 has been growing significantly and we see it  getting even more mature in couple of more years. 

8:03 So, I think first of all, I want  to thank you and Rakuten for  

8:07 including us in your innovation ecosystem. Can you  say a little bit more about our partnership, how  

8:13 Juniper is trying to help you in your endeavor? Yeah, so it was an interesting partnership, right?  

8:20 So this is, this is a work that that was one of  the motivating factor for a lot of operators,  

8:28 right? Why does operator want to have a open  hardware is basically to utilize that hardware  

8:34 more and more, if it has capacity available,  otherwise traditional hardware does the job,  

8:39 but the purpose of bringing a open hardware is to  basically integrate with a open software. And we,  

8:44 this was always the vision for, for Open RAN. And  we were probably, you know, it just happened that  

8:51 we were probably the first mover in this case  also where we took a hardware and we said, okay,  

8:56 we have certain resources computer resource  available, right? Why do we put a, a separate  

9:01 hardware there to do just the routing walk? And  we reached out to Juniper. This was you know,  

9:07 they came back very positively to the idea. See it's not easy for, for a hardware company or  

9:12 a company that sell integrated hardware software  to come up with the idea where you give away your  

9:16 hardware. So, I would say thanks to Juniper for  that perspective, you know, at least you came up  

9:22 with that open mindset to integrate your software  onto our or X86 hardware, right? We, we did a lot  

9:28 of brainstorming you, you know, further optimized  and, and make it more efficient to work on  

9:34 minimum number of resources to be utilized.  Right. And, you know, we had a very hard time  

9:39 working together on those aspects, but today it's  a perfect example where a standard hardware can  

9:45 be used for two different software stack,  which generally never seen coming from same  

9:50 hardware. Right. You never see this happening in  a traditional system where the basement hardware  

9:55 is used for a routing tag also. So this is a,  this is a excellent partnership that we have.  

10:00 And not just to, just to say it, as I said, you  know, you came with a very open mindset where you  

10:07 give away your hardware and you want to integrate  software only. And we are seeing a lot of you  

10:11 know, efficiencies of this collaboration. And  I think we'll do more in future in this regard. 

10:19 Oh, thank you. Thank you for that. I think,  you know, under the topic close to my heart  

10:24 is RIC and SMO and our apps that application  ecosystem that can be built on top of the RIC.  

10:31 do you see the role of in the same on application  ecosystem in the vision and the deployments? 

10:39 Yeah, so SMO is definitely since we, as I said,  the first, first question itself, right? So  

10:47 orchestration is, is integral part of doing Open  RAN, right? If you want do cloud native, if you  

10:51 want to use make, make it more efficient, make  it scalable. Then you have to use technologies  

10:56 which are more cloud native, and which,  which has been showing results. Right? So,  

11:01 so more definitely there is no question about  usability and, and efficiency that it brings.  

11:05 It's, it's just an integral part of the whole  network. Now, RIC, RIC is basically a platform  

11:12 which, which today a lot of operators and a lot  of vendors want to do, right. Efficiencies will  

11:19 basically come from the applications right  now, this, this ecosystem of application  

11:25 has been worked out. There are, there are typical  players who do sound application. They are also  

11:31 proving their application onto a RIC platform. So, this opens up a new generation of development  

11:38 onto RIC platform because it allows different  industries to come together and bring in their  

11:44 expertise. So, I think this is definitely  a founding stone for, for next evolution  

11:51 of technology in, in Open RAN, which opens our  platform to, to smaller, specific skill set,  

11:58 to yield benefit. Otherwise nobody will ever  imagine that a smaller company coming with a very  

12:03 small software stack can show any efficiencies  into RAN network because that's a closed box.  

12:09 Now, since it's open, there is a platform  where such efficiencies can be plugged in.  

12:13 It will directly start showing result  in terms of performance and, and,  

12:18 you know, expenditure savings to the operators. So  I think RIC is definitely a, a founding stone for  

12:24 next leap of innovation on Open RAN. And at Juniper, we hope with our RIC  

12:29 platform, we can cooperate with you and  collaborate with you to make that happen.  

12:34 For me, the ORAN and Rakuten go  together because you are leading the  

12:38 entire world by actually showing the  proof points and success of ORAN. So,  

12:44 one last question for you is what is the, what  is the next step for both Rakuten and ORAN? 

12:51 So, as, as as you rightly said, we, we we have  been working on it. So one important aspect of  

12:59 doing mobile is now a lot of operators have more  trust and, and have started to see that Open RAN  

13:08 is no less efficient technology, or just a, just a  research work. It is a, it is a technology, which  

13:15 is, which is performing. We have a, a commercial  network where commercial traffic is running,  

13:19 which is benchmarked and compared against the  global operators, which is showing performance  

13:24 comparable with top class networks. So, now what  we are saying is a lot of operators are adopting  

13:30 into technology. Now adopting into technology  like Open RAN is, you know, you need a lot of  

13:35 motivation to do it, right, because there's lots  of open pieces. You have to come together. So we  

13:40 at symphony are basically doing that work. We are bringing in the whole ecosystem  

13:45 of radios, of servers of our own in-house  applications for, for automation end-to0end  

13:52 automation. So we are building a marketplace where  we have our own offering for end-to-end software  

13:57 automation and deployment and integration of all  the way from planning to, to operation. And that  

14:03 marketplace is also open for ecosystem partners  like Juniper and, and FI, we are publicly  

14:08 announced and then others, right? So we basically  are now going to the market as a system integrator  

14:14 and a service solution provider where we, where  the operator who want to have a complete offering,  

14:22 we do that. We will give a service provider, a  complete offering if they're looking for that.  

14:27 But if a, if operator want certain  specific pieces from us, they want to be  

14:32 have more control on what they're deploying.  We are also offering those individual pieces  

14:38 that we have developed and gained over the  past few years in our deployment in Japan.  

14:41 So next for us and our partnership is basically  this new announcement that we have around SIM  

14:48 Wear and, and SIM World. We are going and  opening our global opportunities and letting  

14:54 operators utilize our stack to help them build  Open RAN technologies in their, their networks. 

15:00 No, that's wonderful. And thank you.  Thank you for joining me and sharing  

15:04 your thoughts and I look forward to continued  collaboration and partnership. Thank you. 

15:09 Thank you. Thank you, Raj. It was  pleasure to talk to you today. Thank you.