“At this year’s Ubuntu Summit at The Hague, Netherlands, Canonical gave a live demonstration of how open source with automation can help enterprises in their private mobile network deployments. The demo showcased successful integration of Charmed Aether SD-Core and Charmed OAI RAN, where a 5G PMN was set up with commercial 5G phones connected via a software-defined radio (SDR) as the radio front-end. The demo attracted considerable attention from the Summit attendees, who were particularly drawn by the potential impact of these two products on the private mobile networking market.”
“The demo setup with desktop PCs running a disaggregated 5G private mobile network. Our live installation also showcased the ability to deploy the 5G PMN as disaggregated components. This included the control and user plane separation (CUPS) capability of Charmed Aether SD-Core.”
In this article featured in RCR Wireless News by Sarat Puthenpura, Chief Architect, Aether SMaRT-5G, he shares some of the exciting research findings to date from the Aether SMaRT-5G project. SMaRT-5G is focused on exploring, demonstrating and validating innovative energy measurements and modeling for 5G mobile networks. As part of this effort, a platform, POET: Platform for O-RAN Energy Efficiency Testing has been created.
The project is funded by a $2M grant from the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) and activity is taking place in collaboration with Rutgers University’s WINLAB and Cognizant.
Excerpt Published Courtesy of ReTHINK Wireless Watch
“Back in June, Canonical (the firm behind the Ubuntu Linux distribution), released Charmed Aether SD-Core, its implementation of Aether’s SD-Core as a beta release. At this launch, Canonical billed the offering as a way for companies that lack the deep technical expertise of an MNO to deploy a 5G-native network core. — to orchestrate the various microservices needed to keep the network online and in harmony, running on commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) hardware, deployed via K8s.”
“Canonical provided an October update on its Aether-based progress. Next week, at the Ubuntu Summit, a live demonstration of Charmed Aether SD-Core will be running and available for perusal.”
“We are excited about this live demonstration of Charmed Aether SD-Core which combines Aether SD-Core, a scalable open source cloud native mobile core for Private 5G deployments with Canonical’s powerful orchestration engine,” said Larry Peterson, a member of the Aether board and the chair of the Technical Steering Team. “Charmed Aether SD-Core simplifies the operation of a Private 5G, enabling enterprises to efficiently host their own edge applications.”
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You might recall that we recently announced the beta release of Charmed Aether SD-Core, bringing automation to the Linux Foundation’s open source 5G software-defined core (SD-Core) networking software. SD-Core is distributed by the Aether project and is for anyone who wants to build a private 5G network. Canonical’s Charmed distribution of this software is designed to simplify deployment and operation of mobile 5G networks. In this blog, we’ll run through the benefits of using charms for your Aether SD-Core deployment.
Aether SD-Core: Open source 5G network core for private 5G
SD-Core is built to be deployed and run as a cloud-native 5G core on Kubernetes. With SD-Core, an enterprise can achieve a private 5G deployment, with premium connectivity available for their devices on-site, instead of relying on traditional local area network solutions. What’s more, as free open source software, SD-Core is cost-efficient, and is trusted by the industry.
5G mobile network core: benefits and challenges
The 3rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP)’s service-based architecture for 5G core networks provides flexibility, agility and programmability to mobile core networks, transforming a traditionally monolithic software architecture into a fully modular one. This brings efficiency and cost benefits to an operator. Networks can now be deployed on demand, across a distributed cloud infrastructure, and managed with software that can easily scale based on customer demand and dynamic system conditions.
However, as with any cloud-native software, an operator that adopts 5G core technologies requires a suitable set of tools that can flexibly deploy and manage the complex software that 5G core entails. This is because a 5G core network has multiple software components, such as the user plane function (UPF), requiring their own set of configurations and actions to perform software lifecycle management operations. Whilst automation can help manage a cloud-native 5G core with ease, enterprises do not necessarily have the know-how to operate automation software and manage a dozen complex scripts.
What is Charmed Aether SD-Core?
Charmed Aether SD-Core addresses the challenges faced by enterprises that want to deploy and operate their private 5G networks with ease. It provides simple interfaces and removes the need for the necessary know-how on how to operate a private 5G core network.
Thanks to Canonical’s Juju orchestration engine, it is straightforward to deploy and run a 5G core network. All the complexity is managed by software operators, meaning that an IT admin at an enterprise can deploy and manage it with a simple set of CLI commands and an intuitive graphical user interface. Supported by Canonical’s proven software automation and orchestration engine Juju, which operates a wide range of open source products today, Charmed Aether SD-Core brings simplicity for private 5G for anyone.
Perfect for a diverse set of edge computing use cases powered by a 5G core network
You can deploy Charmed Aether SD-Core as all-in-one on a single Kubernetes cluster, or as a distributed core with its control and user planes running separately on multiple clouds. Such separation enables a central 5G control plane, whereas the user plane is hosted as multiple separate instances at the network’s edge locations. This capability is excellent for an enterprise with multiple sites, each of which benefiting from hosting their own data processing at the edge, for on-site edge computing applications.
See Charmed Aether SD-Core in action at Ubuntu Summit 2024
Charmed Aether SD-Core is fully automated and easily consumable by anyone who has a CNCF compliant Kubernetes running, such as Canonical Kubernetes. At this year’s Ubuntu Summit, we will demonstrate it on COTS hardware on-site, along with a software-defined radio with an open source radio stack. This will showcase how one can leverage open source in telecommunications to build an end to end 5G network on equipment they can run anywhere.
“We are excited about this live demonstration of Charmed Aether SD-Core which combines Aether SD-Core, a scalable open source cloud native mobile core for Private 5G deployments with Canonical’s powerful orchestration engine,” said Larry Peterson, Aether TST Chair. “Charmed Aether SD-Core simplifies the operation of a Private 5G, enabling enterprises to efficiently host their own edge applications.”
Run your private 5G core network at a lower cost
You may be a software developer working on a new application that could benefit from 5G, or a telecom specialist or network engineer building a new system that needs mobile connectivity. You may be a member of technical staff at an enterprise, looking into deploying and testing available open source solutions for a cost-effective private mobile network.
Whatever your reason for exploring private 5G networks, Charmed Aether SD-Core is a free open source software that is available as beta. We have documentation pages providing you with tutorials and how-to guides that will help you on your way to cloud-native private 5G. You can test Charmed Aether SD-Core with open source radio and user equipment (UE) software simulators already, but check your country’s regulations and see if you can get a shared spectrum license for research and development purposes. Most agencies already support this at a very low cost today.
If you are curious about 5G and would like to test Charmed Aether SD-Core on your own CNCF compliant Kubernetes, such as Canonical Kubernetes, you can deploy and try it today and give us your feedback.
SMO, Non-RT RIC, and Near-RT RIC are key components of the O-RAN architecture, and open source implementations of these functions have become a driving force in fostering innovation and technological advancements in areas such as xApp/rApp development, testing, interoperability, portability, and security. Today’s Open RAN ecosystem offers several open source options for these components (from organizations such as LF, OAI, ONF, and OSC). While it is exciting to see all the various components become available, this can create confusion for developers assembling an open-source stack for their work.
Rimedo Labs is happy to share that we are working with these organizations to do a comprehensive evaluation and assessment of these different open source RICs to help the industry understand the spectrum of open source offerings and with the hope of promoting greater alignment and possible consolidation to help build critical mass behind a de facto open RAN stack.
The Linux Foundation (LF) is in the process of helping the community evaluate multiple options for SMO and the RICs, aiming to eliminate redundant work and focus the community’s efforts on the most promising solutions. The evaluation’s objective is to determine whether the community should concentrate on a single project, support multiple projects (because their focus is complementary), or even merge projects if that proves to be the best approach. An LF-led steering team has been formed and is undertaking this responsibility, carefully considering various options for this evaluation. Subsequently, Rimedo Labs has been engaged to conduct an independent technical evaluation of the different SMO and RIC options and to provide recommendations in close collaboration with the steering team driving this effort.
Rimedo Labs specializes in providing high-quality consulting, implementation, and R&D services in modern wireless systems, with a current focus on O-RAN, 5G, and beyond. As an O-RAN software provider, Rimedo Labs delivers customized xApps and rApps for RAN Intelligent Controllers, backed by extensive experience with both open-source and commercial RICs. Rimedo Labs has been a long-term collaborator with Open Networking Foundation (ONF)/Aether 5G, contributing to numerous proof-of-concept studies under the SMaRT-5G and previously SD-RAN initiatives.
Check out this article published in RCR Wireless News to for an overview about the Aether SMaRT-5G initiative. This project has been building a series of PoCs that demonstrate progressively advanced energy savings techniques on both Open-RAN and traditional RAN architectures. The phased series of PoCs is to progressively deliver power usage models, APIs and open-source software, with the goal of accelerating MNO adoption and industry impact. The team has demonstrated two SMaRT-5G PoCs in the recent past. The first was at Fyuz in October 2023 and the second took place at the NTIA-hosted RIC forum in March 2024. The key collaborators of these PoCs were Rimedo Labs, Tietoevry, Intel Labs, Viavi Solutions and i14y Labs. More PoCs are on the way.
The National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA)is supporting the SMaRT-5G initiative with a research grant through their Public Wireless Supply Chain Innovation Fund (PWSCIF).
Check out the new blog by Canonical announcing the beta release of Charmed Aether SD-Core, an automation solution for Aether. Charmed Aether SD-Core leverages Juju charms to run an open source 5G core network on a Kubernetes system utilizing COTS hardware and full software automation.
Aether, which includes the latest version of SD-Core (v1.4), is now tested and deployed using OnRamp. Blueprints include support for multiple RAN options: emulated gNBs, physical eNB/gNB, SD-RAN.
Aether OnRamp is now the recommended way to get started with Aether. It defines a step-by-step procedure for deploying and operating Aether on your own hardware, including support for 5G small cell radios.
Aether Governing Board member and Technical Steering Team (TST) Chair Larry Peterson recently spoke at the Linux Foundation’s 2024 ONE Summit. Larry presented on Aether: Private 5G for Industry 4.0, which included an overview of the Aether architecture, key innovations of Aether (SD-Core and SD-RAN) and Aether’s deployment machinery (OnRamp).
SD-Core supports 4G & 5G network functions and includes APIs for configuration, telemetry, policy management. Access networks can connect to Access & Mobility Management Function (AMF) or Mobility Management Entity (MME) depending on the type of access used.
The SD-Core v1.4.0 release includes bug fixes to improve stability, CI pipeline migrated to GitHub Actions, performance improvements to the UPF, and integration testing using OnRamp.
“The demo setup with desktop PCs running a disaggregated 5G private mobile network. Our live installation also showcased the ability to deploy the 5G PMN as disaggregated components. This included the control and user plane separation (CUPS) capability of Charmed Aether SD-Core.”
