Author: TIP News
The commercial success of OpenRAN technology relies on the availability of mature products and solutions that automatically deploy, test, orchestrate, and manage both physical or virtual OpenRAN network functions.
To accelerate the development of these technologies, the Telecom Infra Project’s (TIP) ROMA subgroup is aggregating and harmonizing MNO requirements for Service Management Orchestration and use cases – which are then shared with the ROMA subgroup Community, through releases. The subgroup also helps foster ecosystem partners to develop products and solutions that meet these requirements while also informing future releases.
As the next step in the subgroup’s work to support ROMA product maturity, a work group was formed and led by VIAVI Solutions to develop plans to test features and functions, including multi-vendor interworking, for the TIP OpenRAN community. In parallel, the TIP OpenRAN Project Group, with support from Capgemini Engineering, has now established a new testing environment in the TIP Community Lab in Menlo Park – specifically for ROMA testing and validation. The lab is the first multi-operator network environment in which vendors can use the ROMA test plan to showcase, test and validate their SMO & CD/CT products and solutions in a containerized OpenRAN environment.
The goal of this initiative is to consolidate and organize the test results and make them easily accessible to Service Providers, System Integrators and Equipment Vendors, as this work becomes commonplace in all regions. In addition, the feedback from the test report will be used to further improve the test suite and be used to enhance the technical requirements.
Rajat Kapoor, Vice President from Capgemini Engineering, commented on the launch: “We are proud to be the selected partner in this initiative together with TIP. We believe this will provide the best platform for the Open RAN community of technology providers to test and develop their SMO and DevOps platform products and solutions in a collaborative environment alongside their customers.”
In addition to Capgemini, several other organizations including Amdocs, Atrinet and Tech Mahindra are actively participating in the TIP OpenRAN ROMA subgroup to test and validate their products and solutions.
Speaking in their role as Co-Chair of the TIP ROMA subgroup, Veronica de Alba, from Vodafone Group, said: “This new environment in the TIP Community Lab will offer a great opportunity for vendors to showcase their ROMA solutions while also providing a solid foundation for us and other MNOs to validate and expand OpenRAN Management, Orchestration and Automation use cases.”
Beatriz Gonzalez Rodriguez, from Telefónica, who also Co-Chairs the ROMA subgroup, added: “The initial response from the TIP Community has been very positive with several organizations from around the world committing to testing and developing technologies in this new testing environment. We look forward to collaborating with the vendor community to accelerate the time and rate of their SMO solutions to commercialization and welcome anyone who wants to take advantage of this facility to join us.”
Sameh Yamany, Chief Technology Officer, VIAVI Solutions, commented: “With hundreds of companies involved in developing and deploying Open RAN networks, there is an urgent need for labs to validate the overall ROMA solutions. As an existing partner of TIP and the ecosystem, we are pleased to lead the effort to define methodology and test plans to support the TIP Community Lab and the ROMA subgroup.”
To read more about the TIP OpenRAN Project Group, the ROMA subgroup, and to get involved in this initiative: click here.