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MWC 2023: NOKIA GOES ALL-IN WITH IN-LINE ACCELERATION FOR CLOUD RAN

    
    
 1. Home>
 2. MWC 2023: Nokia Goes All-In with In-Line Acceleration for Cloud RAN

MWC 2023: Nokia Goes All-In with In-Line Acceleration for Cloud RAN
by Ron Westfall | February 21, 2023
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The News: Nokia provided an update to its Cloud RAN portfolio development in the
lead up to MWC 2023. Nokia identifies hardware acceleration as a critical
element in Cloud RAN performance with the overall benefits of In-Line
acceleration outweighing those of Look-Aside acceleration for any Cloud RAN
deployment aiming for highest performance, lowest Total Cost of Ownership (TCO),
and greatest flexibility. Read the Nokia blog here.


MWC 2023: NOKIA GOES ALL-IN WITH IN-LINE ACCELERATION FOR CLOUD RAN

Analyst Take: Nokia is again declaring its full endorsement of the “In-Line”
architecture when it comes to Cloud RAN. Cloud RAN uses the vertical
disaggregation of the Radio Access Networks (RAN) baseband software from
baseband processing hardware. To do so, the virtual Distributed Unit (vDU) and
Centralized Unit (vCU) baseband functions run as containers on a
Container-as-a-Service (CaaS) software layer. The functions and software run on
Commercial-Off-the-Shelf (COTS) server hardware. At the heart of the servers are
General-Purpose Processors (GPP) and hardware accelerators.

The two primary options for implementing Cloud RAN acceleration are the
so-called “Look-Aside” and “In-Line” architectures. To review, the Look-Aside
architecture option, the general-purpose computing central processing unit (CPU)
acts as the master for processing L1 with key functions, such as Forward Error
Correction (FEC), sent back-and-forth to the hardware accelerator.

The hardware accelerator can be a separate Peripheral Component Interconnect
Express (PCIe) card in the server or be located on the same die alongside the
CPU. In both Look-Aside acceleration cases, the CPU still processes many of the
L1 real-time computations, for which it can prove inefficient, as well as the
L2/L3 processing for which the GPP is better suited.

Through the In-Line architecture option, all or part of the L1 processing is
off-loaded from the CPU with a RAN SmartNIC PCIe card. SmartNICs are commonly
used as accelerators in public and private cloud data centers. In-Line
acceleration SmartNICs use dedicated and optimized technology for L1 processing
and fully relieve the general-purpose CPUs (GPPs) from the highly intense L1
processing demands. This liberates valuable CPU resources enabling higher
performance for L2 and L3 applications processing. Through an In-Line SmartNIC,
less complex and less expensive on-accelerated CPUs can be used for L2 and L3
processing where they are better suited.

I view the In-Line architecture as delivering competitive advantages in relation
to Look-Aside solutions across efficiency, capacity, and connectivity
considerations, while also improving power consumption by combining
high-performance SmartNIC capabilities with COTS server hardware. For instance,
the processing power and capabilities of both the In-Line architecture choices
will improve through silicon design advances provided by chipset suppliers such
as Marvell, Qualcomm, AMD/Xilinx, and NVIDIA, as well as the Look-Aside
architecture supplied by Intel.

Of note, Nokia uses customized Marvell OCTEON silicon to augment its ReefShark
chipset family across key applications such as multi-RAT RAN and transport.
Looking ahead, I see L1 processing demands increasing substantially due to
higher radio capacity needs and lower latency demands in the concatenation from
5G to 5G-Advanced and eventually 6G throughout vDU/vCU, multi-sector macrocell
base stations, microcell base stations, and intelligent radio head environments.

Through In-Line Acceleration, L1 capacity can be increased by adding, through a
targeted and cost-conscious manner, SmartNICs independently from the CPUs that
are processing L2/L3. And contrariwise, CPU capacity can be increased
independently from In-Line SmartNIC capacity. With Look-Aside acceleration, all
capacity enhancements require increasing the number of CPUs even if not all the
CPU functions are unvaryingly needed for the processing of the different
software layers (L1, L2, L3). In-Line acceleration can streamline the full
architecture with a clean L1-L2 interface.

The O-RAN Alliance seeks to open the interface between L1 and L2. In-Line
SmartNICs use the standard PCIe interface and integrate with all compute and
cloud platforms, with the optionality of x86 or Arm processors for disaggregated
L2 and L3 processing. I see this delivering greater solution design flexibility
and a broader choice of cloud server hardware providers.

I also see emerging Cloud RAN (vDU+vCU) configurations as delivering notably
lower power consumption per cell with an In-Line approach compared to
Look-Aside, yielding lower cost per cell for the In-Line solution.

Additionally, In-Line SmartNICs use cloud native VDU and vCU software that are
purpose developed to align with cloud native principles, including data being
decoupled from the applications, loosely coupled microservices, elastic and
horizontal scaling, automated lifecycle management, and continuous software
integration and delivery. For example, it supports the scalability of
containerized vDU application functions to various nodes managed by the
container orchestration platform, such as Kubernetes. As a result, cloud
efficiency is higher with the In-Line accelerated Cloud RAN architecture as it
relaxes the latency requirements on the CaaS layer running on the CPU, leading
to savings on the real-time features of CaaS.


KEY TAKEAWAYS: NOKIA FULLY COMMITS TO CLOUD RAN IN-LINE ACCELERATION

I believe Nokia’s adoption of the In-Line Acceleration approach can help
accelerate and broaden market acceptance of Cloud RAN, including across
multi-sector macrocell base stations, microcell base stations, intelligent radio
heads, and O-RAN vDUs implementations. It can also help advance 5G ecosystem
outcomes such as Vodafone/Nokia collaboration to spread Open RAN across Europe
and O-RAN Alliance support. This includes providing lower latency, higher system
capacity, and high per-user data rates which power the densification of the RAN
and spur deployment of additional network nodes, further propagating Cloud RAN
adoption.

From my view, 5G RANs will increasingly use wider bandwidths, triggering
torrential demand for high throughput microcells and full macro cell
capabilities. As such, the In-Line acceleration Nokia advocates will become
increasingly essential to delivering optimal 5G capacity, energy efficiency,
cloud nativeness, and time-to-market advantages across O-RAN and vRAN
implementations.

Disclosure: Futurum Research is a research and advisory firm that engages or has
engaged in research, analysis, and advisory services with many technology
companies, including those mentioned in this article. The author does not hold
any equity positions with any company mentioned in this article.

Analysis and opinions expressed herein are specific to the analyst individually
and data and other information that might have been provided for validation, not
those of Futurum Research as a whole.


OTHER INSIGHTS FROM FUTURUM RESEARCH:

Nokia Fiscal Q4 2022 & FY 2022: Demonstrates Impressive Company-wide Progress
with Turnaround Mission

A Deep Dive into Nokia’s Evolution, Growth, and Brand Strategy

Marvell Fiscal Q3 2023: Record Quarter Revenues and New Cloud Products Pave Way
for Long-Term Growth

IMAGE CREDIT: DPLNEWS

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR



RON WESTFALL

Ron is an experienced research expert and analyst, with over 20 years of
experience in the digital and IT transformation markets. He is a recognized
authority at tracking the evolution of and identifying the key disruptive trends
within the service enablement ecosystem, including software and services,
infrastructure, 5G/IoT, AI/analytics, security, cloud computing, revenue
management, and regulatory issues. Read Full Bio.






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