Ireland-based private 5G specialist Druid Software has released a high-end version of its 5G core network for distributed private 5G deployments at the enterprise and network edge – in order for enterprises, operators, and other system vendors to be able to offload and manage network software functions across multiple edge locations in support of standalone 5G (5G SA) features like network slicing and ultra reliability (URLLC).
Druid Software has worked with Danish telecoms chip-maker Napatech and US software firm Red Hat on the product; the former is supplying a smart network interface card (SmartNIC), to enable offload of the user plane function (UPF) data plane from the server CPU, and the latter is supplying its edge server platform to orchestrate the management of the network across a distributed architecture.
The introduction of standalone 5G (5G SA) brings certain high-end control features that have not been available in non-standalone 5G (5G NSA) networks. These include network slicing, to carve up airwaves as dedicated bandwidth to optimise enterprise services, and ultra-reliable low-latency comms (URLLC), which is a 3GPP-designated family of network features that bring prized performance and control mechanisms to 5G-based applications.
But such 5G SA features, particularly in private network setups for industrial enterprises, require network software functions to be re-achitected across multiple lower-footprint and lower-power edge data centres, located in or near to the enterprise user. The trio have sought to balance and resolve the architectural and management challenges in such a distributed setup to make high 5G SA performance and control is delivered for enterprises, as promised.
A statement said: “Maximizing the benefits of SA networks requires locating functions like the 5G packet core at the edge of the network, requiring a large number of small-footprint edge data centres that need to be cost-effective and energy-efficient, with straightforward processes for both deployment and operations… Red Hat, Napatech and Druid have collaborated to integrate a hardware-software solution based on Druid’s Raemis packet core.
“Through a standard data plane development kit (DPDK) driver, Raemis leverages a Napatech SmartNIC to offload and accelerate the UPF, which is the most compute-intensive subsystem within the core. The distributed packet core is managed by Red Hat Device Edge, which simplifies the large-scale deployment and life cycle management of cloud-native workloads.” The press statement included a series of tech-busy quotes from the three parties.
Ian Hood, chief technology officer for Red Hat’s telecoms business said: “Red Hat Device Edge plays a pivotal role in enabling cost-effective, energy-efficient and scalable 5G deployments at the edge. By collaborating with Napatech and Druid, we’ve combined innovative hardware and software technologies to simplify the deployment of distributed 5G networks. This integrated solution showcases how Red Hat Device Edge empowers both enterprises and service providers to unlock the full potential of 5G services with streamlined operations and optimized performance.”
Tadhg Kenny, senior vice president of marketing at Druid Software, said: “The Raemis platform delivers the features required for leading-edge private networks – such as REST API support, fully-virtualised deployments, customisable technology, 5G support, and network slicing. With the event-driven automation of Red Hat Device Edge, it ensures consistent, reliable deployments and operations. In addition, we leverage the packet core acceleration provided by Napatech’s SmartNIC to deliver up to 2x 100G line rate traffic on a single server, based on typical use cases.”
Charlie Ashton, senior director for business development at Napatech, said: “Napatech’s NT200 SmartNIC… is powered by the AMD Virtex UltraScale+ XCVU5P FPGA and processes up to 185 million concurrent flows while achieving a total throughput of up to 297 million packets per second with a latency of under five microseconds. By offloading the UPF data plane from the server CPU and requiring only a single core for the UPF control plane, the solution minimises the number of servers required in an edge data centre and frees up the remaining CPU cores for running value-added services like the centralised RAN unit (RAN CU).”
As well, a supplied quote from Moor Insights & Strategy stated: “5G networks are evolving from traditional infrastructure deployments with a centralized packet core located in a telco data center to a distributed architecture in which the core is distributed across a large number of edge locations. Consequently, it’s a challenging proposition to balance the disaggregated elements from an operational management perspective while ensuring high performance at scale. The tech stack contributions from [these three could] deliver an edge-oriented and highly performant packet core that not only minimises cost and energy consumption, but also provides simplified deployment and operations.”
