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Radisys Senza Fili in collaboration with FierceWireless

Radisys

Finding the edge in

converged networks

A conversation with Neeraj Patel, Vice President and General Manager of MobilityEngine, Radisys

By Monica Paolini,

Senza Fili

Finding the edge in converged networks June 2018 |2|


Radisys: Finding the edge in converged networks

A conversation with Neeraj Patel, Vice President and General Manager of MobilityEngine, Radisys

Radisys has supported edge computing since the

early ETSI MEC days. Its involvement has widened

with new solutions, and through its participation in

new initiatives and standardization efforts. In this

conversation, I talked with Neeraj Patel, Vice President

and General Manager of MobilityEngine™ at Radisys,

about the evolution of edge computing and about

Radisys’ role in the ecosystem to promote edge

computing’s adoption.

Monica Paolini: This is a good opportunity to catch

up with what you have been doing since our

conversation last year. Can you give us an

introduction to what Radisys is doing in edge

computing?

Neeraj Patel: Radisys is a key player in the emerging

space for mobile edge computing. We have solutions

for wireless access on the RAN side, all the way from

the old 2G days – even now, there is some 2G

deployed – to 3G, LTE, LTE Advanced, and, finally, 5G

New Radio, or 5G NR.

RAN is a critical focus for Radisys. As we get into the

core network, the edge is becoming more and more

important, and we’re seeing that a lot of the action is

now being pushed towards the access network.

MEC, or Multi-access Edge Computing, as ETSI calls it,

is also a critical component where Radisys is

continuing with its building-block approach.

Within this building-block approach, there are

different components that we provide, and different

areas of expertise that we help our customers with,

and different operator engagements that we are

being pulled into.

Monica: You’ve been working on edge computing for

a long time now. Can you tell us how your view of the

market and the challenges you’re trying to address

have changed through the last few years?

Neeraj: If you recall, and a lot of the industry veterans

will recall, there was something called LIPA and SIPTO

in the 3G days – effectively, local breakout. Radisys

had developed solutions for LIPA and SIPTO. I don’t

want to cannibalize MEC by calling it yet just another

extension of that.

There are several key use cases – the first being a

local breakout gateway on the ONF M-CORD

platform that we demonstrated last year and that was

very well received. That was Radisys’ starting point for

MEC.

Content delivery networks, CDNs, are another key

area we’ve been working on. There are industry

leaders such as Akamai in this space. We’ve been

working with them on how to bring in CDN.

Then there are a myriad of use cases. Most recently at

MWC in Barcelona, we demoed an AR/VR application.

We looked at an application in a simplistic form as a

VM that we initiate, onboard, orchestrate on our NFVi

platform, and that had a specific MEC use case.

What’s changed in the last year or two is that, with 5G

coming in and with LTE Advanced, the latency

requirements are becoming more and more critical.

A healthy debate is, where is the edge? There are

different definitions, depending on which operator or

which MEC solution provider you ask. They all define

the edge differently. I’ve picked up so many new

words and phrases, such as near edge, far edge, close

edge – things that I didn’t know existed.

Now, when you look at the network, you’re going to

say that this depends on where you put the MEC box.

Are you intercepting at the S1? Are you intercepting

elsewhere? What is the use case that’s driving it? That

really is becoming key.

Across the leading operators I spoke with in Australia

recently, one common use case that came up is

private networks for enterprise and industrial IoT. One

thing that they all mentioned in different

conversations was that they need a MEC solution.

That then leads to questions around what their

wireless RAN access is, what their core is – but they

also need a box sitting in between to offload the

traffic. We need to come up with a box that can

actually be the broker, so to say, for these industrial

IoT use cases where AR/VR or any video application



has to be set up. Two things we’re seeing is as key

differences are the latency requirements are kicking in

and where the box is placed.

Monica: So where do you think that box should be?

Neeraj: We have a good idea. The answer definitely

lies with the operators and with the use case. From

our perspective, we are seeing MEC fitting in

beautifully just behind the base station, sometimes

even co-located with the base station, depending on

the latency requirements.

In some use cases, we have seen it sitting in the core.

But typically, in most of the engagements we’ve been

involved in, in conversations or where we are working

with different customers, the MEC box is either co-

located with the base station or just behind it –

meaning going towards the core network.

Monica: What is Radisys’ role within the edge

computing ecosystem?

Neeraj: Radisys is an enabling solution provider. We

want to provide all of the different building blocks

that help our customers. Those customers could be

ODMs, OEMs, or CSPs, the commercial service

providers. We want to help them with their MEC

strategy.

Our MEC philosophy is to enable a Lego building-

block approach, where our customers may have

assets that they’ve developed, and may have their

MANO infrastructure that they want to bring in.

Some customers – almost all the ones we are

speaking to right now – have some form of their own

NFVi architecture in place. They look at us and ask,

“Hey, Radisys, can you come in and help us plug in?”

Take, for example, the Intel NEV, network edge

virtualization function – they ask: “Can you take this,

enhance it, add the RAN access to it, add the traffic

management portion to it, have it bolted onto or

plumbed onto an NFV architecture, talking through

the VIM layer?”

It has to now all be orchestrated, and it has to fit into

our overall OSS/BSS strategy. Most importantly, we

have to enable these different VMs. We work – our

customers and ourselves – with a host of different

application VM guys. They could be guys who are

doing AR or VR applications and who have them

plumbed onto this common infrastructure.

Radisys comes in to provide this end-to-end software

solution integration around these different MEC

building blocks. That’s where we see ourselves

coming in.

Another area our customers are talking to us about is

the base station. They say: “Hey, Radisys, if you’re

going to be co-located with a base station, what else

can you provide me from a base station solution

perspective?”

As you recall, Radisys plays a very key role for

eNodeBs, which will continue with gNodeB in 5G, and

it is extending that to a co-located MEC. That’s

another area customers are talking to us about.

Monica: You mentioned private networks. There’s a

huge amount of interest there, and they give the

enterprise a new, larger role in wireless networks.

Does the enterprise need edge computing in private

networks?

Neeraj: Private networks are gaining a lot of steam.

Private enterprises are high-output customers, so



service providers have a lot of interest in serving the

enterprise. It’s a key component of their customer

base. Think of oil rigs, mines, hospitals, stadiums.

A few technical concepts come up: neutral hosts, IoT

and network slicing. That’s where MEC really fits in

well. Customers are looking at the MEC box as

something where they could provision a lot of the

services for their enterprise without having to dip into

expensive core resources.

A lot of these enterprises have a connection to the

core, but a lot of the network is very local within the

enterprise. That’s where the MEC box works as the

perfect broker, helping to segregate the local traffic

from the traffic that has to go out into the core.

You can push a lot of the mobility management out

to the core. But there’s a lot of static IoT traffic

coming into the HetNet that you need to manage and

provision. Then there is the local CDN traffic and

AR/VR applications for industrial IoT, depending on

the enterprise class. That’s where the enterprise is

looking at the MEC box as the perfect solution to

provision a lot of these services on. That’s where we

are seeing a lot of interest coming in.

Monica: You mentioned network slicing. How do

network slicing and MEC work together?

Neeraj: There will be some level of DPI – deep packet

inspection – that will happen. There will be

assignment of flows. In the typical network slicing

model, you’ll go through the resource blocks on the

base station. You’ll do an end-to-end slice that’ll

cover slices from the base station all the way down to

the core.

A perfect area to put the network slicing function will

be on the MEC box.

One of the key building blocks we provide is what we

call our FlowEngine product. We have a virtualized

FlowEngine. Think of that as DPI doing five-tuple

inspection, packet filtering traffic coming in, and

segregating the IoT flows. These have very limited

requirements for session management, mobility

management. You’re not using the expensive core

resources doing that.

This IoT traffic can be put back into your network or

onto a separate network. One of the areas we spoke

about is potentially using an LTE network as an

overlay. You have your 5G network that you are

deploying, but you’re using your existing LTE network

almost as an overlay for IoT traffic.

I don’t really need to use my expensive 5G network

resources for some of this IoT traffic. I already have a

4G network available. The MEC box helps you broker

that. Even from a core perspective, a stateless EPC to

do IoT traffic handling is a much, much lighter version

than a full-fledged EPC or, going forward, the 5G core

network.

These are the areas where we see network slicing as a

function that enables IoT, sitting alongside with MEC.

We look at network slicing and MEC almost in the

same way. The network slicing function is actually

implemented on the MEC box.

Monica: Another MEC use case is connected cars.

There, mobility becomes an issue. As we push

functionality to the edge, cars need to connect to

different MEC servers as they move around. Do you

see connected cars to be an important use case for

MEC? If so, how can you address it?

Neeraj: Connected cars are a very interesting case. In

a simplistic view, a connected car is yet another UE.

It’s another piece of user equipment.

If you look at the amount of information cars have

today and will have with all this V2X technology that

people are talking about, the car itself is going to

become a very, very smart smartphone.

There are two aspects to consider here.



The first one is street-side cabinets, because there’s

so much data being exchanged, and, more

importantly, the latency requirements are very

stringent.

I would say that besides remote surgery, connected

cars – when they become a real use case – will have

the most stringent requirements for latency, if we

consider the amount of data that’s being exchanged,

especially for the driverless cars.

The other aspect is that when you’re pushing data

back into the core network, the MEC box becomes

important. It may be in a street cabinet, or on a light

pole. I don’t know what the deployment model will

be, but it is going to be something that is curbside.

Again, MEC will handle all of the mobility

management aspects with the RAN coming inside the

MEC network. That’s where you’ll handle a lot of these

cases, and then you’re brokering it off into the core.

You will also have a lightweight core that’s co-located

in the MEC itself.

A lot of functions of the S gateway, the P gateway,

and the MME would also be co-resident in the MEC

box itself. There are numerous companies that are

taking the EPC or CN and bringing that into MEC.

That’s why we are now talking about a network in a

box, as far as MEC goes, for these use cases.

Another thing we are seeing a lot of is FOTA, firmware

updates over the air. Today, your car is nothing but a

souped-up computer that gets a lot of firmware

updates.

If you take your car to be serviced, one of the normal

things besides an oil change will be getting the

software updated all the time.

The idea is, how do you push all of the FOTA, which is

now looking like a CDN network? You’re going to

suck up a lot of bandwidth if you’re doing it through

the core. These MEC boxes, within a certain area, will

push the FOTA to registered cars. That’s where we are

seeing a different use case, for the MEC to also be

your local CDN repository, so to say.

Another use case we’ve seen is parking lots. In fact,

every parking lot is becoming almost like a smart city

in its own self, with the amount of information

exchanged – from keyless entry to managing and

knowing which car has pulled in when, which car pulls

out later, to also the FOTA that came down when the

car was parked there.

Monica: Application developers, OTTs and content

providers are also interested in edge computing. Are

you going to work with them?

Neeraj: We are working with a few of the OTT

players. Some of them are pretty well known in the

industry. They are using the operator network as the

delivery pipeline, but they are also putting a lot of the

intelligent content on top of it.

It could be video being pushed out – so again, a high-

level CDN. They will use the MEC box if video is being

pushed out, or if they are doing some level of

authentication for some specific application. These

OTTs are asking us: “Hey, Radisys, can you come in

and do the plumbing?”

Maybe they have selected a MEC solution provider.

There are a few upstart companies in this area, but

there are holes there.

That’s where Radisys comes in. We are a software

solution integrator that understands the core. We



understand the RAN. We understand the delivery

network coming in. We know the equipment boxes.

We’ve deployed equipment boxes. We know how to

fill up some of the gaps, plumbing the specific

applications or VMs that these OTT guys have.

A lot of these OTT guys are also building their own

networks today. Companies like Netflix or Amazon

are building out their own little mini data centers and

data centers as you get into the core. A lot of these

will have MEC boxes sitting there with their local

content that they are pushing out for targeted

audiences.

We are getting involved with OTT players to help

them building that piece of the network out, bridging

the existing solutions and making them compatible.

That’s where we play a part, and we expect to keep

playing a part as this keeps evolving.

Monica: With OTTs and content providers coming in,

the distinction between wireless and wireline

networks is going to disappear. Are we are going to

see an increased convergence of wireline and

wireless?

Neeraj: Absolutely. The reason for it being called

multi-access edge compute is that you have

broadband and wireless coming in. In fact, we work a

lot with CORD. Within CORD, for example, we’ve

worked on a box called VOLTHA for broadband

access. It’s an abstraction layer that operators can

bring in.

The reason I bring that up is that VOLTHA is one

model, although not necessarily the only way to

address broadband access. It could be a CP device or

a Wi-Fi device for OLT when you’re coming in. In

either case, some sort of broadband access is getting

terminated onto the MEC box before it goes into the

core. From a MEC perspective, one of the building

blocks for us, in addition to the wireless LAN access, is

broadband access.

Monica: You mentioned CORD and other initiatives.

At the beginning, edge computing was mostly for

wireline networks. Now edge computing is becoming

crucial in wireless networks too. And it’s more than

ETSI MEC. There are multiple initiatives, and CORD is

one of them. What is the contribution of these

initiatives? Are they working with each other, or

competing with each other?

Neeraj: Radisys’ heritage has always been standards

compliance – following the standards of 3GPP, IETF,

ETSI and others.

With ETSI, we are taking a lead role in defining the

MEC standards – that’s the model we want to evolve

towards. Our MEC strategy centers around working

on the MP1, MP2, and other interfaces that ETSI is

specifying.

We are an active member of CORD, an active member

of TIP and its working group for MEC. These industry

consortiums are driven by operators. And key

equipment manufacturers are in these consortiums,

as well.

Being part of that community and hearing what

people want to deploy is critical to Radisys. These are

the forums where a lot of these use cases are being

actively discussed.

Following and being a part of that discussion is a

cornerstone of our strategy. Compliance with

standards, hearing what’s happening in these

different consortiums, and making sure all of this

keeps flowing in the right direction is critical to us.

How do we bridge what they’re discussing and what



the standards are saying? Invariably, they’re pretty

similar, although there are subtle differences.

Radisys does not believe in putting out a proprietary

MEC solution or a proprietary MEC box. We want to

have building blocks that are compliant with ETSI

standards, in line with what we are hearing at TIP, or

how the core platform will evolve as the edge goes

towards MEC. We are part of the xRAN Alliance.

All of this eventually does call out a MEC box. That’s

what we see ourselves being a part of.

Monica: MEC boxes add infrastructure and hence a

cost element. Is there a good business case for MEC?

Neeraj: The business case comes in from the opex

savings on the bandwidth, because you’re not using

your expensive core resources. All operators are

increasing coverage, but at the same time, spectral

efficiency, bandwidth efficiency is number one for

them.

Furthermore, there isn’t a technical way to solve the

latency issue unless you move some of the core

functions closer. You’re not going to move the entire

core closer, that doesn’t scale. That’s why multi-access

edge is a layered hierarchy model that’s coming into

the networks.

Finally, the output that a network eventually drives is

a function of the applications it enables. MEC

becomes very important if someone wants to see a

video downloaded. Without MEC, the video is going

to be buffered or choppy, and it is going to cost the

operator money to transport those bits from a data

center sitting a hundred kilometers or a hundred

miles away.

It is the localization of the content, the ability to

deliver that content meeting those latency and

performance requirements, and network optimization

that are needed for the user experience.

If you look at the evolution of 4G and 5G, and at

gigabits of downloads and uploads, it’s all about the

user experience. That’s where we see MEC coming in.

Monica: What are you working on for the future?

What are the big challenges for edge computing that

we need to address?

Neeraj: One of the challenges is that the definition of

MEC differs depending on who you talk to. We don’t

want to lose the creativity, but at some point, we

need to get more alignment on where exactly MEC

will fit, and what MEC really means.

We also need faster standardization. There’s a lot of

work that ETSI has already done. How will different

RANs, for example, come in? MEC is not going to be a

greenfield deployment, where there is a brand-new

RAN, a brand-new core, and a brand-new MEC box.

MEC will have to fit into existing networks.

The ability for multiple vendors providing RAN, EPC,

or 5GCN to be able to play in this market will ensure a

quicker bolting of 5G into this.

There is an immense opportunity that keeps all of us

excited in this field. That’s where we would like to see

the industry evolving towards.

Glossary

5G Fifth generation

5GCN 5G core network

API Application programming

interface

AR Augmented reality

BSS Business support system

CDN Content delivery network

CN Core network

CORD Central Office Re-

architected as a Data Center

CP Customer premised

CSP Communications service

provider

DPI Deep packet inspection

EPC Evolved packet core

ETSI European

Telecommunications

Standards Institute

FOTA Firmware over the air

IETF Internet Engineering Task

Force

IoT Internet of things

LIPA Local IP access

LTE Long Term Evolution

MANO Management and

Orchestration

MEC Multi-access Edge

Computing

MME Mobility management entity

MWC Mobile World Congress

NEV Network edge virtualization

NFC Near field communications

NFV Network Functions

Virtualization

NFVi NFV infrastructure

NR New Radio

ODM Original design

manufacturer

OEM Original equipment

manufacturer

OLT Optical line termination



OSS Operations support system

OTT Over the top

P-GW Packet gateway

RAN Radio access network

S-GW Serving gateway

SIPTO Selected IP Traffic Offload

TIP Telecom Infra Project

UE User equipment

V2X Vehicle to everything

VLAN Virtual local area network

VIM Virtualized Infrastructure

Manager

VM Virtual machine

VOLTHA Virtual OLT Hardware

Abstraction

VR Virtual reality

This interview is part of the report “Getting edgy. Optimizing performance and user experience with edge computing”

by Senza Fili in collaboration with FierceWireless

Download the report

https://pages.questexweb.com/GettingEdgyOptimizingPerformanceandUserExperiencewithEdgeComputing-June2018-Registration.html?source=senzafili





About Radisys

Radisys, a global leader in open telecom solutions, enables service providers to drive disruption with new open architecture business models.

Radisys’ innovative disaggregated and virtualized enabling technology solutions leverage open reference architectures and standards, combined

with open software and hardware to power business transformation for the telecom industry, while its world-class services organization delivers

systems integration expertise necessary to solve communications and content providers’ complex deployment challenges. For more information,

visit www.Radisys.com

About Neeraj Patel

Neeraj heads the Solutions business for Radisys comprising of MobilityEngine, ServiceEngine, FlowEngine and DCEngine. He has held numerous

management positions within the company, including sales, business development and product line management. He brings 20 years of telecom

experience with expertise in various Wireless RAN (Mobility, LTE Advance, 5G, Fixed and CBRS) as well as deep packet inspection, switching and

access technologies. He joined Radisys in 2011 as part of the acquisition of Continuous Computing. Prior to this, he was with Intel and Trillium

where he was involved in company strategy, product management, corporate marketing and sales development in highly competitive as well as

greenfield markets. Neeraj holds a Masters in Electrical Engineering from the University of Southern California.

Lights, Camera, AI: The Power of Artificial Intelligence in Media & Entertainment // December

2017 //


About Senza Fili Senza Fili provides advisory support on wireless technologies and services. At Senza Fili we have in-depth expertise in financial

modeling, market forecasts and research, strategy, business plan support, and due diligence. Our client base is international and

spans the entire value chain: clients include wireline, fixed wireless, and mobile operators, enterprises and other vertical players,

vendors, system integrators, investors, regulators, and industry associations. We provide a bridge between technologies and

services, helping our clients assess established and emerging technologies, use these technologies to support new or existing

services, and build solid, profitable business models. Independent advice, a strong quantitative orientation, and an international

perspective are the hallmarks of our work. For additional information, visit www.senzafiliconsulting.com, or contact us at

[email protected] .

About Monica Paolini Monica Paolini, PhD, founded Senza Fili in 2003. She is an expert in wireless technologies and has helped clients worldwide to

understand technology and customer requirements, evaluate business plan opportunities, market their services and products, and

estimate the market size and revenue opportunity of new and established wireless technologies. She frequently gives

presentations at conferences, and she has written many reports and articles on wireless technologies and services. She has a PhD

in cognitive science from the University of California, San Diego (US), an MBA from the University of Oxford (UK), and a BA/MA in

philosophy from the University of Bologna (Italy). You can contact Monica at [email protected].

© 2018 Senza Fili Consulting LLC. All rights reserved. The views and statements expressed in this report are those of Senza Fili, and they should not be inferred to reflect the

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