Skip to main content
search
Blog

Aether SD-RAN Roadmap – What’s Next?

By May 22, 2025May 27th, 2025No Comments

This is the tenth and final blog in a series of weekly posts that focuses on highlights from the “Open Source Near-RT RIC Comparison v1.0” report by Rimedo Labs.

Introduction

A well-defined roadmap is essential for ensuring the long-term development, sustainability, and alignment with industry trends in open-source projects. For Near-Real-Time RAN Intelligent Controllers (Near-RT RICs) in Open Radio Access Network (O-RAN) environments, an evolving roadmap reflects planned enhancements in performance, interoperability, security and compliance with O-RAN standards.

This blog post focuses on the development trajectory of Aether SD-RAN, a cloud-native Near-RT RIC implementation hosted by the Linux Foundation. The roadmap highlights upcoming innovations in scalability, automation, and AI integration. Insights are based on Section 3.6 of the ‘Open Source Near-RT RIC Comparison v1.0’ report by Rimedo Labs. For a broader view across multiple frameworks, the full report offers additional context.

Why a Roadmap Matters

A strong roadmap provides:

  • A vision for ongoing improvements, ensuring adaptability to new technologies and network requirements.
  • Commitment to O-RAN standardization, ensuring compliance with evolving specifications.
  • Stability for adopters, helping network operators and vendors plan long-term deployments.
  • Clear development priorities, directing community contributions and resource allocation.

Aether SD-RAN: Roadmap Highlights for 2025 and Community Goals

Aether SD-RAN is evolving toward a highly modular, AI-enhanced, and fully cloud-native Near-RT RIC. Its roadmap outlines a vision that bridges telecom-grade needs with cloud-native agility. Key goals include:

Near-Term Goals

  • Enhanced cloud-native capabilities: Continued refinement of Kubernetes-native orchestration for scalable deployments, improving automation and multi-site rollout.
  • Integration with ONAP and cloud automation frameworks: Extending support for dynamic service lifecycle management across hybrid infrastructures.
  • Expanded E2 and A1 interface functionalities: Improving adaptability for dynamic RAN policies and operator-defined automation workflows.

Long-Term Vision

  • Scalable, modular Near-RT RIC with AI-driven optimizations: Incorporating analytics and policy-based intelligence to support autonomous RAN behavior.
  • Strengthened interoperability with telecom and cloud vendors: Ensuring seamless integration in multi-vendor and multi-domain deployments.
  • Streamlined xApp onboarding and deployment: Simplifying the development, packaging, and lifecycle management of custom and third-party xApps.

Community and Engineering Goals

In addition to its technical roadmap, the SD-RAN community has set a number of engineering and research goals that are ongoing:

  • Aligning with the latest O-RAN specifications – since the O-RAN specifications are continuously evolving, it is important to stay up to date
  • Stabilize and refactor core components, including the E2 interface, A1 interface (A1-DM), and key-value database (considering alternatives to Atomix).
  • Advance integration with other O-RAN stacks, such as O-RAN SC and OAI.
  • Expand community engagement, including collaboration with Intel Labs, Rimedo Labs, universities, and new contributors.
  • Engineer and deliver key features:
    • Scalable RAN simulator and RC service model integration.
    • Support for 4G/5G OAI RAN, KPM, RAN slicing, and SMART-5G.
    • Enhanced observability (fixing the SD-RAN exporter) and SMO integration.
    • Onboarding new AI/LLM-driven use cases, aligned with emerging O-RAN scenarios.

The Roadmap is reflected in the wiki page, here.

2025 Quarterly Objectives

  • Q2 (SD-RAN 1.5 release):
    • Release SD-RAN 1.5
    • Improve CI/CD pipelines and image/chart publication
    • Fix SD-RAN observability stack
    • Brainstorm SMART-5G and new research topics with the community
    • Complete new SD-RAN API and E2 interface design
  • Q3:
    • Fix E2SM to work with other O-RAN stacks
    • Integrate O1 (NETCONF)
    • Update A1 interface version integration
    • Complete Phase 1 of SMO integration
    • Complete initial version of scalable RAN Simulator
    • Complete design of new AI/LLM research topic
  • Q4 (SD-RAN 1.6 release):
    • Finalize AI/LLM use case
    • Complete OAI 5G RAN Slicing
    • Complete SMO integration
    • Release SD-RAN 1.6
    • Publish 1–2 research deliverables

These goals reinforce Aether SD-RAN’s position as a forward-looking, telecom-cloud converged platform aligned with operator and research community requirements.

Conclusion

Aether SD-RAN’s roadmap reflects a strategic commitment to delivering a cloud-native, AI-augmented, and open Near-RT RIC architecture. As O-RAN ecosystems evolve, the roadmap ensures Aether SD-RAN remains flexible and adaptable to new requirements, industry partnerships, and use cases.

For More Information

Close Menu