Rakuten company demonstrates the VRAN "Symworld" built on its own network with MWC

　Rakuten Symphony, a subsidiary of Rakuten, a major Japanese IT in Japan, gave a lecture at MWC 2022, a wireless and telecommunications exhibition held in Barcelona, ​​Spain since February 28 (local time). Regarding the SaaS (Software as a service) SaaS (Software as AServices) of VRAN (Virtual Radio Access Network), which is adopted by Rakuten MNO mobile phone company "Rakuten Mobile" We appealed to officials in the mobile phone industry. [See another image about this article] Among them, Rakuten Symphony Co., Ltd. CEO, CEO, who had just been appointed Rakuten Mobile CEO the other day, said the US AT & T COMMUNICATIONS (hereafter, the day before. He announced that he had collaborated with AT & T and the acquisition of US cloud service business operators Robin Systems (hereinafter referred to as Robin), and after the lecture, a partnership with Finnish Nokia was revealed. In the lecture, Hiroshi Mikitani, Chairman and President of Rakuten Group, also appeared. "I made a VRAN system in -house, just because I built Rakuten services with a full scratch, but there was nothing else. I made good things, so I offered it to other companies and provided it to other companies. I would like to be able to provide services at lower costs for mobile carriers. " He appealed for the adoption of Symworld, which has a track record of operation. ■ General -purpose processes have been replaced with general -purpose processors + software, and now that the history of IT is also used in network equipment, most of which have fixed functions are software + high -speed general -purpose processors. You will soon notice that it has been replaced and achieved high functionality. In the old days, a server device with a dedicated function called a general -purpose machine was replaced with RISC processors + software developed for high -performance computers, and then replaced with X86 processors + software, which was developed for the current PC. , It is now. The same can be said for office equipment. For example, a typewriter is first replaced by a dedicated processor + software, and then replaced with the current PC called X86 processor + software. The same applies to mobile phones, and at first, mobile phones with dedicated fixed functions are widespread, and after that, it has been replaced with a combination of ARM processor + software, making it a smartphone today. In this way, the history of IT is a history that has evolved by replacing hardware with dedicated functions with general -purpose processors and software. Now it is about to happen in various industries. A typical example is a car, which is trying to replace the ECU with conventional fixed functions with general -purpose processors + software, which has ADAS (advanced safety driving system), automatic driving, and UX like a smartphone. And so on. Replacing fixed functions with such general -purpose processors + software is called SD (software defined, software), but it is now happening in network equipment, which is called SDN (Software Defined Network). There is. The network devices used in the mobile phone network are broadly referring to the base stations that are directly interacted with mobile phones and various packets sent from the base station, and confirm the user's contract status. It consists of two core. The solution that replaces the ran (Radio Access Network), which is the core, is called VRAN, and simply speaking, a virtual machine is built using virtualization technology in some data centers, and then the RAN function. Is to run. ■ Rakuten's SYMWORLD This is the lecture of Rakuten Symphony, which uses the functions of the core network used by the communication carrier to SaaS, and the company introduced it when the Rakuten Mobile's LTE service was built, and used it for the subsequent 5G services. We demonstrated SaaS "Symworld". Generally, VRAN is composed of a data center composed of general -purpose servers. For this reason, the hardware is procured by Rakuten Symphony partner companies, etc., and Symworld is operated as SaaS. For example, the hardware of the wireless base station is procured from Qualcomm to the United States, the CPU and FPGA of the blade server installed in the data center, etc., from Intel, the United States, etc. 。 Rakuten Symphony's Intelligent OPS Product Strategy / Technical Sales Officer Anshur Bat, who has been operated by his PC (appearing as an Apple notebook PC), accesses the Symworld management screen from a web browser and actually various management screens. Is released. In the case of a network device with a conventional fixed function, if the device breaks down, a field engineer will go to the device and recover the failed device. However, in Symworld, the composition of the device can be performed from the management screen on the web browser, so if some obstacles occur, the device can be separated and the network function is upgraded. You can also install a new virtual machine. In the demonstration, it has been published that the installation of equipment can be easily installed from the template (of course, if a physical machine is introduced, a field engineer will perform it at the data center). Also, seeing the performances of the entire network and checking the parts that do not have any obstacles, and checking information such as client devices connected to the map where the base station is placed, also Symworld screen. It is possible, for example, in this area, it can be done from Symworld, such as planning a new base station because of the large load. As a unique function, a function to confirm the reputation of Rakuten Mobile posted on Twitter on Twitter is also provided. For example, it is possible to confirm the information that users posted that "it is difficult to connect with XX" and consider the structure of the base station as one of the feedback. Utilizing the features of cloud basses, Symworld is built by Symworld, regarding the knowledge database that support staff confirms, and even user support such as chat support. For this reason, for network administrators, one Symworld can grasp the overall situation. This is a system that makes good use of the features of SaaS. ■ Network's cloud venture Robin acquisition and AT & T and NOKIA partners in MWC one after another, Rakuten Symphony CEO Talek Amin, who has just been appointed Rakuten Mobile's CEO for this Symworld. When I started working in Rakuten, the communication carrier used complicated hardware, used almost the same thing, and the cloud or software was not used. He said that it could be realized with software. Four years have passed, and now the coverage in Japan is up to 96 %. This mechanism should be introduced not only in Japan but also in the world. " VRAN using Symworld, which Rakuten Symphony has built for Rakuten Mobile, has become a major success example, and emphasized that it will sell it to overseas vendors. According to Amin, he has already announced a collaboration with AT & T, and has been talking about a partnership with Teleponica, a Spanish telecommunications carrier. The company also stated that the company had agreed on the acquisition of Robin, a US cloud -related startup company, the day before the lecture at MWC. In the future, we will be waiting for certification for regulatory authorities. Robin is a company that has attracted attention in VRAN's cloud solutions, and acquiring the company is an important announcement in order to enhance the Rakuten Group's solution. After the lecture, a partnership with Nokia, a Finnish telecommunications device vendor, was also announced, and Nokia was also announced, and Nokia's Symworld -based IP Multimedia Subsystem (IMS), Shared Data Layer (SDL), Internet of Things (IoT) Plus (IoT) Platform (IOT) Platform is suitable for Nokia. In addition to the provision, the marketplace "Symworld Marketplace" scheduled to be provided by Rakuten Symphony has also announced plans to provide cloud applications developed by Nokia. Mr. Amin said, "I would like to make the telecommunications carrier buy an application so that (Apple's smartphone user (Apple's smartphone user) will buy an application at the App Store), and in the future, the application market will be held in third parties. He said he wanted to build. ■ Rakuten Group Mikitani CEO also visits. Amin's lecture aimed at selling to the world with emphasis on cost -side benefits, Rakuten Group Chairman and President Mikitani and President, said, "I made a VRAN system in -house. As I introduced, there was nothing else. I would like to provide it to other companies and provide services at lower cost by providing it to other companies. " He said that he would like to export it as a service by selling directly to overseas telecommunications companies that do not compete directly. According to the Q & A session, "The wireless communication business is in a special environment that requires a radio license in the regulatory industry, and most countries have only three or four businesses. Banks require licenses, but the number of licenses is available. The lack of restrictions is a big difference from the communication business. If you use similar devices in such a limited competitive environment, the cost will be higher. Many telecommunications carriers are looking for another option. He said that he had the opportunity to have it, "commented that he expects Rakuten Group to be a promising business.

Cloud Watch, Kazuki Kasahara