Radisys and China Unicom Collaborate on Mobile CORD (M-CORD) Implementation for 5G Services
Collaboration to focus on open software and network virtualization architecture within China Unicom’s mobile network based on M-CORD
HILLSBORO, OR, U.S. February 21, 2017 – To maximize 5G mobile service opportunities across China Unicom’s network, services acceleration company Radisys® Corporation (NASDAQ: RSYS) and China Unicom, one of the world’s largest mobile service providers, are partnering to build and integrate Mobile CORD (M-CORD) development PODs that use open source software. M-CORD, built on top of ONOS and the CORD (Central Office Re-architected as a Datacenter) open source project, combines data center economics and the agility of the cloud with the benefits of a virtualized and disaggregated mobile core, as well as access infrastructure and mobile edge computing for innovation and deployment of 5G services. The companies will work together to develop deployment scenarios for this solution in China Unicom’s network.
“As China Unicom evolves its network from 4G to 5G, it requires a fully virtualized and disaggregated infrastructure to better serve its residential, enterprise and mobile customers,” said Joseph Sulistyo, senior director of open networking solutions, Radisys. “We’re confident that together we can build and integrate an M-CORD POD to facilitate a robust 5G mobility infrastructure, thereby enabling China Unicom to rapidly deploy new 5G services on its network.”
As a CORD systems integrator, Radisys will leverage CORD’s open reference implementation to bring China Unicom’s network cloud agility and improved economics. M-CORD is an emerging platform for 5G services with three key components: mobile edge services, virtualized Radio Access Network (RAN), and virtualized Evolved Packet Core (EPC). M-CORD makes mobility more cost-efficient, more software-programmable and more cloud-elastic.
“China Unicom is collaborating with Radisys to collectively develop technology enablers and use cases for 5G services,” said Dr. Tang Xiongyan, CTO, Network Technology Research Institute, China Unicom. “Radisys will also provide us with its recommended deployment scenarios and feasibility analysis as well as an effective prototype demonstration of the solution in our mobile network. We’re encouraged that its efforts will yield great results for our subscribers.”
Additionally, Radisys and China Unicom will develop together an open reference implementation of a virtualized RAN (vRAN) and an open reference implementation of next-generation mobile core architecture with observability and analytics. The companies will also explore opportunities for projects surrounding mobile edge computing (MEC), virtualization technology for connected cars and service development and demonstration, and connectionless architecture.
See the M-CORD Demonstration at Mobile World Congress
Radisys and ON.Lab will demonstrate M-CORD use cases running on commodity hardware and on DCEngine™ at Mobile World Congress, February 27-March 2 in its Booth 5I61 in Hall 5. To see the demonstration and meet with Radisys’ CORD and open source experts, contact info@radisys.com.
About CORD Project
CORD™ (Central Office Re-architected as a Datacenter) brings datacenter economics and cloud flexibility to the telco Central Office and to the entire access network. CORD is an open source service delivery platform that combines SDN, NFV, and elastic cloud services to network operators and service providers. It integrates ONOS, OpenStack, Docker, and XOS—all running on merchant silicon, white-box switches, commodity servers, and disaggregated access devices. The CORD reference implementation serves as a platform for multiple domains of use, with open source communities building innovative services for residential, mobile, and enterprise network customers. The CORD ecosystem comprises ON.Lab and organizations that are funding and contributing to the CORD initiative. These organizations include AT&T, China Unicom, Google, NTT Communications Corp., SK Telecom Co. Ltd., Verizon, Ciena Corporation, Cisco Systems, Inc., Fujitsu Ltd., Intel Corporation, NEC Corporation, Nokia, Radisys, and Samsung Electronics Co. See the full list of members, including CORD’s collaborators, and learn how you can get involved with CORD at www.opencord.org.
CORD is an independently funded software project hosted by The Linux Foundation, the nonprofit advancing professional open source management for mass collaboration to fuel innovation across industries and ecosystems.
About China Unicom
China Unicom was officially established on 15 October 2008, and is committed to forging itself into a world-leading innovative ICT service provider. As of 2015, China Unicom is ranked 207 among the Fortune Global 500. As a leading operator providing both fixed-line and mobile services in China, the subscriber number of fixed service and mobile service is more than 300 million, and its service covers 31 provincial branches and 7 overseas operations. It has about 400,000 employees. For more information about China Unicom, please visit http://eng.chinaunicom.com/index/index.html.
About Radisys
Radisys helps communications and content providers, and their strategic partners, create new revenue streams and drive cost out of their services delivery infrastructure. Radisys’ hyperscale software defined infrastructure, service aware traffic distribution platforms, real-time media processing engines and wireless access technologies enable its customers to maximize, virtualize and monetize their networks. For more information about Radisys please visit www.radisys.com.
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