Telco infrastructure for virtual RAN with Open RAN architecture
Modernize your telecom infrastructure with Open RAN, and deliver next-generation connectivity by choosing secure and trusted open source from Canonical.
Boost the performance of your virtual RAN telco workloads with a composable, cloud-native software stack with enhanced platform features.
Disaggregated, distributed and interoperable networks with Open RAN technology
Open radio access networks (Open RAN) represent a paradigm shift in the world of radio access networks. The traditional, monolithic RAN components are being supplanted by disaggregated, distributed components that can be sourced from multiple vendors.
Canonical is your trusted partner for bringing together the key elements of a cost-efficient and interoperable Open RAN infrastructure, based on secure and performant open source software products.
Become cloud-native and implement virtual RAN functions on Canonical OpenStack and build flexibility, scalability and composability into the fabric of your infrastructure.
Why choose Canonical for telecom infrastructure?
- Trusted publisher of open source
- Secure with streamlined updates and upgrades
- Cost-effective deployments and operations
- Silicon optimized operating system
- Support for enhanced platform features
Canonical's telco
infrastructure portfolio
We offer a set of products to address the needs of operators and enterprises at different levels of a telecom infrastructure stack. These products are the building blocks that we constantly optimize for the latest hardware, and offer an efficient and highly-performant software infrastructure to telecom software workloads. Our cloud infrastructure portfolio for telecom allows customers to choose exactly what they want to run across clouds and devices.
Canonical's telecom infrastructure for Open RAN
Canonical's open source infrastructure products bring several benefits to virtual RAN functions for Open RAN:
Real-time operations
Ensure real-time responsiveness as needed by Open RAN distributed units (DU) and mission-critical edge applications alike
Security
Protect your entire RAN deployments, from operating system to Open RAN software and applications
Multi-site operations
Deploy and manage your infrastructure and radio software centrally across multiple radio cloud sites at scale
Performance
Leverage enhanced platform features offered by all major hardware vendors
Scalability
Deploy your radio software on edge clouds that scale as needed
Ubuntu for Open RAN
To achieve carrier-grade Open RAN deployments, virtual RAN software requires an operating system that is robust, immutable and battle-tested in the Telco industry. Choose Ubuntu as your OS and benefit from the low latency, security and enhanced platform features that telcos need to deliver next-generation connectivity.
Guaranteed bounded low-latency
Real-time Ubuntu ensures latency in data processing is bounded and low. Ubuntu's Real-time kernel prioritizes Open RAN networking software workloads and provides streamlined packet processing. This brings support for even the most stringent use cases, categorized as ultra-reliable low latency communication (URLLC) applications.
Immutable
Telco far-edge clouds require tamper-proof deployments that are self-healing, with minimal footprint. Ubuntu Core, the embedded Linux operating system for devices, is secure by design, and is immutable thanks to its containerised architecture. Implement your Open RAN system and run your virtual RAN software with the confidence that only your system admins can modify your remote systems. If you are a radio unit vendor, check out our embedded Linux page for more resoures.
Optimized
Thanks to our partnership with an extensive range of hardware vendors, Ubuntu is optimized to run on all popular hardware systems, including bare metal servers, the latest cutting-edge silicon, and enhanced platform components like DPUs and IPUs. This means that Ubuntu delivers the best possible performance on all mainstream hardware, ready for your Open RAN deployments.
Secure and compliant
Telecom networks are considered to be part of critical national infrastructure. Open RAN deployments must be both safeguarded and compliant with all telecom security standards. With Ubuntu Pro, operators get the most comprehensive security subscription service for open source software. Open RAN fleet of servers get live CVE patches and streamlined updates and upgrades without downtime. Ubuntu Pro ensures compliance with all telecom security standards, and hardening for the minimum attack surface.
Transparent
We make sure that you have the right tools to manage your fleet of RAN systems at scale. With Canonical Landscape, you get visibility on all your Ubuntu fleet, and can perform security patches, auditing, and access management at scale across your multiple RAN sites.
Enhanced platform features
Whichever workload you run at your edge-clouds, be it virtual RAN functions for Open RAN or edge computing software, Ubuntu detects and supports the most advanced hardware. Our vendor partnership programme makes it possible to support a variety of hardware, such as function accelerators, GPUs and network cards.
Vendor neutral products
We work with all major hardware vendors to optimize our infrastructure products, ensuring that they are ready to run Open RAN CU, DU and RU at the highest performance and reliability levels.
Cloud-native execution environments for Open RAN
Canonical Kubernetes offers the perfect cloud-native execution environment virtual RAN functions for Open RAN and MEC workloads alike. Built from fully upstream components running in a confined execution environment, it offers a secure and trusted software platform, supporting:
- Multiple enhanced platform features, such as SR-IOV, CPU pinning, DPDK, Hugepages, and GPU acceleration
- Various storage solutions, like Ceph, OpenEBS, and hostpath storage
- Multiple popular CNIs, like Cilium, Calico, Flannel, and Multus
- Support for Cluster API for declarative cluster deployment and management operations
Open source data and AI/ML platforms for Open RAN
RAN Intelligence Controllers (RIC) bring AI/ML to Open RAN. By running RIC on Ubuntu, Open RAN can natively support network intelligence via its standard interfaces for near-real-time and non-real-time control operations. RIC systems need a secure and reliable operating system, as well as powerful data and AI/ML platforms. With Ubuntu and Canonical’s Data and AI products, you can build and run carrier-grade network intelligence for your Open RAN deployments.
Canonical data platforms for Open RAN
Canonical brings automation, reliability, and support to popular open source data management tools like Kafka, MongoDB, MySQL, OpenSearch, Valkey, Postgres and Spark. You can build data pipelines of varying complexity according to your needs, and meet the database, big data processing, analytics and search requirements of your rApps, xApps and AI/ML workflows.
Data science and ML platform for Open RAN
Deploy and run AI/ML workflows with ease, thanks to our software automation and tooling. Discover how you can build the perfect environment for your Open RAN xApps and rApps at every stage of your AI/ML journey.