Collaboration to benefit communication service providers and business application vendors at the telco edge

Barcelona, Spain. 28 February 2024. Canonical today announced an expansion of its relationship with Amazon Web Services (AWS) to make Real-time Ubuntu available to Amazon Elastic Kubernetes Service Anywhere (Amazon EKS Anywhere) customers for use in Open radio access network (RAN) commercial deployments. With Real-time Ubuntu and Amazon EKS Anywhere, customers can benefit from ultra-reliable low-latency operating system performance and simplified Kubernetes cluster management.

The need for ultra-reliability and low latency in data processing

Open RAN enables distributed deployment of mobile networking software that runs an operator’s RAN across edge clouds, making it possible to bring data processing closer to where devices and end users are located. Low-latency compute at the edge is required due to the stringent real-time processing of RAN workloads. Open RAN software requires agility in packet processing at the operating system level, so that the networking software stack can deliver information with bounded latency levels.

Besides Open RAN system software, business services that are sensitive to time delay, such as factory control systems, enterprise resource planning, and passenger information systems, also require low-latency and reliable communications quality. This means that the time delay in delivering information between a service and the devices that consume that service must be bounded throughout the lifetime of the service. This is necessary for operators to be able to meet application service level agreement (SLA) requirements given to business customers, so they can have the desired quality of experience.

Amazon EKS Anywhere

Amazon EKS Anywhere allows users to create and operate Kubernetes clusters on their own infrastructure. It builds on the strengths of Amazon EKS Distro and provides open source software that’s up to date and patched, so that users can have an on-premises Kubernetes environment that’s more reliable than a self-managed Kubernetes offering. These features make Amazon EKS Anywhere an ideal deployment option to run cloud-native Open RAN functions on Kubernetes at the telco edge.

Real-time Ubuntu

Real-time Ubuntu provides bounded low latency in the Linux kernel to applications that are sensitive to time-delay. By assigning a higher priority to such applications when scheduling system resources, Real-time Ubuntu can guarantee uninterrupted processing of latency-sensitive applications, minimising the time to process them. Real-time processing is an essential feature for telco clouds where Open RAN and edge computing workloads run.

“We are pleased to mark another milestone in our continued collaboration with AWS by bringing real-time data processing, required by advanced Open RAN workloads, on Amazon EKS Anywhere with Real-time Ubuntu,” said Arno Van Huyssteen, CTO of Telco at Canonical. 

“By continuing our joint innovation with AWS to provide cutting-edge capabilities and total cost of ownership benefits, this partnership delivers further value to our shared telecom customers. We take pride in making the most powerful Linux platform on the market accessible to all Amazon EKS Anywhere and Open RAN consumers. Drawing on Ubuntu’s renowned open source prowess and AWS’s cloud services, we strive to satisfy the performance and adaptability required for virtualised RAN and edge computing transformation in telecommunications. Together, we aim to supply the technical bedrock to propel the next wave of advancement.“

Ubuntu with real-time kernel on Amazon EKS Anywhere: A technology enabler for 5G telco edge

By working with AWS, Canonical will make it possible to offer real-time processing capabilities to Amazon EKS Anywhere customers. Operators deploying Open RAN software components, such as distributed unit (DU) and central unit (CU) on Amazon EKS Anywhere platforms can then boost the performance of their radio access networks, and get the benefits of Open RAN.

The technology also opens up the possibility to deliver real-time capabilities to application workloads on Amazon EKS Anywhere platforms, such as 5G industrial applications and location-based services among many others.

Join the discussion at MWC 2024

Canonical’s CTO for Telco, Arno Van Huysteen, will join industry leaders in a panel discussion at MWC 2024. The panel, titled “A roadmap to successful O-RAN deployment on cloud” and hosted by AWS, will take place on 28 February 2024 at 14:00 – 14:30 CET at the Inspiration Zone, Room CC1.4. Join the round-table discussion on how Open RAN on cloud computing systems will play a role in the future of telecommunications.

Learn more about Canonical’s solutions for telco

To learn more about Real-time Ubuntu and how it benefits telecommunication networks and applications, read our blog. If you would like to learn more about the telecommunication services we provide, visit https://ubuntu.com/telco.  

About Canonical

Canonical, the publisher of Ubuntu, provides open source security, support and services. Our portfolio covers critical systems, from the smallest devices to the largest clouds, from the kernel to containers, from databases to AI. With customers that include top tech brands, emerging startups, governments and home users, Canonical delivers trusted open source for everyone. Learn more at https://canonical.com/.

The world’s largest and most influential telecommunications exhibition event, Mobile World Congress (MWC), is taking place in Barcelona on 26-29 February 2024. Canonical is excited to join this important annual event once again and meet the telecom industry. 

Telecommunications is a key sector for Canonical. We offer solutions for private, public and hybrid/multi cloud environments, with a consistent experience across the entire telecom spectrum, from core clouds to the edge, with a single set of tooling. Built with the same philosophy as Ubuntu – secure, trusted and production-grade open source backed by full operations support – our solutions are fully upstream and integrate the latest technology advancements that telco leaders require to deliver best-in-class services to their customers. 

We are looking forward to meeting you at MWC 2024. Come and speak with our experts to learn how we can help you in your journey to cost-effective, secure and trusted open source telecom solutions for your infrastructure.

Hot topics in telco

To meet today’s customer expectations, telecom operators require flexible, scalable and agile operations across the many service types that make up a modern mobile network.

At this year’s MWC event in Barcelona, Canonical’s team will explain how you can elevate your telecom infrastructure with the latest innovations in cloud-native technologies and modernise your telco clouds with open source. These strategies will empower you to meet and exceed customer expectations with repeatable and reliable deployments.

Automation at scale for telco edge clouds with CNEP

We have been listening to our telco customers to understand their needs in delivering cost-effective modern edge clouds for their infrastructure that they can rely on. Canonical is proud to offer a new holistic solution, Cloud Native Execution Platform (CNEP) to meet these needs precisely at telco edge clouds.

With CNEP, we deliver the ideal software stack for telco edge clouds with automation in place, based on fully upstream and CNCF certified Kubernetes running on bare metal hardware for best performance. It brings all essential open source components together, with the aim of achieving high performance in data processing and delivery, whilst ensuring platform security and efficiency with Ubuntu Pro.

At MWC, our team will explain how operators can achieve scalable and repeatable deployment of edge clouds with CNEP. For Open Radio Access Network (RAN) readiness, CNEP is the ideal RAN platform, bringing all the technology features that cloud-native Open RAN components require. CNEP is also tailored for best performance and security assurance for distributed compute and multi-access edge computing (MEC) applications, enabling businesses to run their telco workloads on 5G edge networks.

Real-time Ubuntu for ultra-reliable and low-latency communications

Canonical has been working with all major silicon hardware vendors, such as Intel, to deliver the highest levels of performance and security to telco networks and applications. 

We have been running advanced engineering programs with the aim of enabling the latest innovations in silicon hardware in telco software infrastructure at a rapid pace, with quick software release cycles. As part of our collaboration with Intel, we have integrated Intel FlexRAN in Ubuntu real-time kernel for telco applications and networking software, which has enabled real-time processing at both operating system and silicon levels.

At this year’s MWC, we will explain how Ubuntu Pro brings real-time data processing capabilities to the telco edge for mission-critical operations and also ensures confidential computing for the most-sensitive telco workloads.

Sustainable telco edge infrastructure with an energy-efficient system stack

Telecom networks will increasingly deploy edge cloud sites in the journey to distributed and flexible cloud-native operations. This requires support for several features across the hardware and software stack to make sure that platforms are energy and cost efficient. From container images to bare metal hardware automation, Canonical’s edge cloud stack is equipped with features that ensure sustainable operations.

In Barcelona, we will explain how our open source software stack can deliver optimal deployments on telco edge clouds and help operators meet their sustainability goals.

Demos

At MWC 2024, you will get the chance to see our technical team demonstrate Canonical’s CNEP solution. This is a great opportunity for all players in the telco ecosystem to see how we meet sector requirements on cloud-native operations at the telco edge with automation. In our demo, the Canonical team will run CNEP on Intel’s 4^th Generation Xeon Scalable Processor, bringing the acceleration capabilities provided by Xeon to large-scale edge network rollout for cost-efficient Open RAN deployments.

CNEP’s open and upstream APIs along with Canonical’s observability stack and telemetry solutions enable machine learning algorithms to assist edge cloud operations. The Canonical team will demonstrate how our AI/ML platform solutions can be used to boost the effectiveness of distributed computing applications running on telco edge clouds. We will show how a multi-cloud data platform can be formed for various data types collected from a telecom network. We will also show ML-based anomaly detection and LLM to summarise and explain collected data from the network. 

Come and meet us at MWC 2024

If you are interested in building your own modern telecom infrastructure and migrating to open source with cost-effective, secure and trusted solutions, Canonical can help you. We provide a full stack for your telecom infrastructure, enabling secure, trusted, flexible, optimised, automated and low-touch operations.

To learn more about our telco solutions, meet us to discuss your telecom needs at MWC Barcelona 2024, and visit our webpage at ubuntu.com/telco.

If you’re unable to find a suitable time, please reach out to Mariam Tawakol <mariam.tawakol@canonical.com> or Jacob Boe <jacob.boe@canonical.com>. Let them know your availability and what you’re interested in, and they will set up a meeting for you.

Further reading

Canonical joins Open Networking Foundation

Fast and reliable telco edge clouds with Intel FlexRAN and Real-time Ubuntu

Bringing automation to telco edge clouds at scale

How telcos are building carrier-grade infrastructure using open source