Niral Open Product Framework

A novel approach to transform 5G network infrastructure from being vendor controlled to vendor
agnostic.

Abstract
Mobile Network Operators have traditionally been dependent on a handful of vendors. This
dependency made the upgrades slower, increased cost and hampered innovation. Adoption of
open and disaggregated solution has enabled Cloud Service Providers to innovate rapidly.
Operators realize the need for transformation and are fast mutating from traditional and
proprietary solutions to openness and disaggregation. It is predicted that 5G Networks need to
be 10X denser than 4G Networks. The denser network would require devices from more
vendors leading to further risk of vendor lock-in.

Niral Networks has come up with the concept of the Vendor Agnostic Open Product Framework.
Niral Open Product Framework enables Mobile Network Operators to transition from Vendor
Controlled to Operator Deliberated approach that reduces the risk of vendor lock-in and fosters
innovation by having better control over their vendor, product, cost and solution.

Keywords: 5G, Open Source, Curation, Disaggregation, White box, Niral Open Product
Framework, NiralOS, Telecom Network Transformation, Vendor Agnostic
Networking Landscape in last decade

The Networking landscape has changed rapidly in the last decade. Few of the notable factors that
has emerged are:

 Open Source Offering became matured

 Availability of Multiple White box ODM
 Emergence of SDN and NFV
 Industry realization of the risk of vendor lock-in
 Industry movement towards Open Network Adoption

Most Cloud Service Providers like AWS, Facebook, Google adopted open source and white box
hardware solution pretty early. They have in-house R & D team that develops and contributes to
many open source projects. Most of their data center runs on open, disaggregated software and
hardware.
Mobile Network Operators have traditionally been dependent on a handful of vendors. This
dependency made the upgrades slower, increased cost and hampered innovation.

Mobile Operators Cloud Service Providers

Dependency on Traditional OEMs High Low
In-house R&D Limited High
Adoption of Open Source Low High
Adoption of White box Low High
Adoption of SDN and NFV Low High

Adoption of open and disaggregated solution has enabled Cloud Service Providers to innovate
rapidly.

Mobile Networks Operators Transformation

Mobile Network Operators understands the risk of vendor lock-in and are fast transforming from
traditional and proprietary solutions to openness and disaggregation. Many operators have set
up their own Research and Development arm and are working with open source communities or
developing their own NOS to mitigate the risk of vendor lock-in.

Operators with indigenous R&D team AT&T, Verizon, Orange, NTT, Viettel, Jio
More recently, network operators like AT&T have begun embracing the concept of
disaggregated routing in collaboration with open-source projects. AT&T acquired the Vyatta
virtual router software from Brocade and announced plans to deploy 60,000 Disaggregated cell
site routers (DCSG) in 2018. Rakuten and Telefonica have conducted field trials with
disaggregated software and hardware in 2019 and have started deployment.
Below is a list of few Open source projects where Operators are contributing.

Project / Operator Contributors Other Contributors

Community

DANOS AT&T Niral Networks

FRR Orange Cumulus, Niral Networks, Vmware

O-RAN AT&T, China Mobile, NTT, BT, Jio, Ericsson, IBM, Intel, Altiostar, Mavenir,
Airtel, etc. Parallel Wireless

ONOS AT&T, China Unicom, NTT, Google, Edgecore, Intel, Ciena, Broadcom,
Comcast, etc. Delta

STRATUM China Unicom, KPN, NTT, Turk Big Switch, Cisco, Delta, Broadcom,
Telecom Barefoot, Mellanox

DPDK AT&T Intel, ARM, Ericsson, F5, NXP

LF Networking Deutsche Telecom, AT&T, Bell, Ericsson, Cisco, Huawei, Intel, Juniper,
Vodafone Red Hat, ZTE

LF Edge NTT, AT&T DELL, GE, HP, Samsung, Qualcomm

Open Compute AT&T, Deutsche Telecom Arista, ASUS, Alibaba, IBM, Cumulus, ARM

PRPLWRT BT, Vodafone, Verizon, Deutsche Intel, Broadcom, Qualcomm

Telecom

In Telecom, the term “OPEN” has different meanings based on the approach that the Vendor
takes to build the product.

OPEN means closed proprietary software built on an open standard, with interoperable APIs
and integrable to off-the-shelf White box hardware to create an Open, Disaggregated Network
Solution. Such solutions are still Vendor Controlled, as Operators have little control over the
proprietary software and its enrichment. The feature development and more importantly its
support is totally under the control of the vendor. Vendors such as Altran, Metaswitch and IP
Infusion are offering proprietary NOS, they share only their binary and therefore indirectly create
a vendor lock-in.

OPEN also means open-source software built on open standard with interoperable APIs, where
any individual, Open Source community, Open Innovation Group within Organization can
contribute towards the software enrichment or support, similar to Linux, and is integrable to any
off-the-shelf White box hardware. This approach is truly Vendor-Agnostic as it uses open
source.

After multiple deliberations with customer and open source ecosystems, the Niral team came up
with the concept of the Vendor-Agnostic Open Product Framework. Niral Open Product
Framework enables Mobile Network Operators to transition from Vendor Controlled to Operator
Deliberated approach that reduces the risk of vendor lock-in and fosters innovation by having
better control over their vendor, product, cost and solution.

Figure 1

Niral Open Product Framework

Niral Open Product Frameworks are Open software products built using open source code with
interoperable APIs and curated to be robust, scalable, and feature compliant. Any individual or
community is open to contributing towards its software enrichment or support. It is integrable to
any off-the-shelf White box hardware to create a Disaggregated Networking Solution.

Niral Open Product Framework is built on 3 principles:

1. Open Source Software Curation with flexible support – Work with Open Source
Ecosystems to develop, integrate Open Source Software, and curate it to make is
robust, scalable, feature, and standard compliant. Continue to provide carrier-grade
support, maintenance and develop new features.
 2. Telco Collaborated Customization – Work with Mobile Operator to customize it to their
requirement and integrate into their existing Network components.
3. Disaggregation as per Operator’s Choice of White box hardware and software – Work
with Mobile Operator to integrate their choice of White Box Hardware and Third-Party
Software

Niral Open Product Framework for Disaggregated Cell Site Gateway (DCSG)

Disaggregated Cells Site Gateway (DCSG) is deployed near the 4G/5G cell site and forwards
cell site traffic towards the Core network. DCSG supports IPv4, IPv6 routing protocols, MPLS
Signaling. CSR forwards IPv4, IPv6 or MPLS packets towards the Core Networks.
Niral’s DCSG NOS has been integrated to x86 Server with DPDK, Broadcom and NXP based
white box HW. Niral NOS can be integrated with any white box HW based on performance and
scalability requirement.

Niral Open Product Framework for Deep Packet Inspection (DPI)

DPI is deployed as a bump in the wire and is transparent to the network components in either
side. In 5G, DPI can be deployed in the Edge and Core network. DPI parses all traffic passing
through it and detects the application used by mobile subscriber, applies policy and collects
statistics for billing.
DPI node can be deployed as a cluster in offline or inline mode. Niral’s DPI can be deployed as
a VNF or integrated to an x86 or ARM based white box Server

Niral Open Product Framework for Front Haul Gateway (FHG)

FHG provides vendor agnostic front haul transport using an Open White Box Platform that meets the
low latency requirements for front haul traffic. FHG eliminates many of the challenges in deploying a
Cloud RAN/O-RAN architecture by providing the ability to packetize and aggregate mobile front haul
traffic over a common physical Ethernet interface that is easily switchable, as well as, being less
expensive than alternative solutions such as Dense Wavelength Division Multiplexing (DWDM), for
example.

FHG node can be deployed using a FPGA or DSP for Radio-PHY processing and integrated to
an x86 or ARM based white box Server

Benefits of Niral Open Product Framework

Niral Open Product Framework is developed with contribution from Open Source community,
Open Innovation Group within the organization, individuals willing to collaborate to the Open
Source Ecosystem.

 Roadmap of new feature development is discussed in the open community, and

operators can collaborate to influence its roadmap.
 Operators have flexibility to take the software support from any vendor or from their own
R&D team. Making the Niral Open Product Framework truly vendor agnostic.
 Flexibility in feature enrichment as any team, including the operator’s own R&D team
can enrich the open source code.
 Operator is flexible to work with Niral Networks to develop their own customization
related to north-bound integration, third-party software integration, specific white box
integration. Source Code of the customized component is the Intellectual Property of the
customer.
 Cost-effective and flexible pricing. Niral Networks has a Zero-CAPEX, SaaS-based
pricing.
Kindly drop us an email at [email protected] to know more about Niral Open Product
Framework.