5G O-RAN (Open RAN): Architecture, Procedures And Use Cases

O-RAN (or Open RAN) opens new avenues of service innovation and agility for telcos by breaking the Radio Access Network (RAN)  into its component parts, each of which can be separately reconfigured. O-RAN standards are freely accessible to all third-party software developers, who can develop new types of services and innovate on the RAN Intelligent Controller (RIC) by building xApps and rApps. This enables telcos to make their networks a much more relevant resource for both enterprise and consumer applications.

Arguably the open RAN’s biggest claim is the potential to enable telcos to avoid vendor lock-in by replacing vendor-proprietary interfaces with a fully disaggregated RAN based on open standards.

Automation will be key to managing the lifecycle of disaggregated, cloud-native RAN functions. O-RAN can bring down the network deployment and operation cost by evolving the network in a continuous integration/ continuous delivery (CI/CD) manner rather than through generational investment cycles.

This course covers all the important topics that are required to have a good and comprehensive learning of the O-RAN technology. The relevant standards of the O-RAN alliance have been discussed to describe the O-RAN architecture and working, as well as the O-RAN open interfaces.

The contents of the this course are:

Section 1: Introduction
                 The Main components of a 5G Network
                 Design Goals of Open RAN

Section 2: Evolution to Open RAN
                 Traditional Basestation Architecture
                 Evolution to the Contemporary Basestation
                 Evolution to Virtualized RAN (vRAN)
                 From Virtualized RAN (vRAN) towards Open RAN
                 Difference Between Distributed RAN and Centralized RAN
                 Difference Between Centralized RAN and Cloud RAN
                 Path to 5G Open RAN: Horizontal Dis-aggregation

Section 3: RAN Splits-Logical View
                 Different RAN Functional Splits
                 RAN Split Option 1
                 RAN Split Option 2
                 RAN Split Option 8
                 RAN Split Option 6
                 RAN Splits Logical View
                 Option 7.2x for Open RAN
                 Enhanced CPRI (e-CPRI) Protocol

Section 4: Overview of O-RAN Architecture
                 Difference Between Open RAN and O-RAN
                 Control Plane & User Plane Dis-aggregation in O-RAN
                 Entities & Interfaces Introduced in O-RAN Alliance Architecture Functions
                 Options For Aggregation of O-RAN Nodes
                 O-RAN Control Loops
                 Major Entities in O-RAN Ecosystems

Section 5: Virtualization techniques for O-RAN
                 Evolution of Virtualization: Physical Network Functions (PNFs)
                 Virtual Network Functions (VNFs)
                 Monolithic Applications as VNFs
                 Cloud Native Network Function-Distributed Applications
                 O-Cloud Deployment Options
                 DEVOPS CI-CD in O-RAN
                 Network Automation to Reduce CAPEX and OPEX

Section 6: Detailed O-RAN Architecture
                 Service Management and Orchestration (SMO)
                 Non Real Time RIC (non-RT RIC)
                 JSON (JavaScript Object Notation) Format Example
                 A1 Policy Format and Examples
                 Near Real Time RIC
                 Centralized and Distributed Near-RT RIC

Section 7: O-RAN Traffic Steering Use Case
                 O-RAN Traffic Steering (TS) APP Example-Problem of Traditional TS
                 Advantages of TS using O-RAN
                 Required Data (KPI) collection for TS
                 Role of Non-RT RIC in TS
                 Role of Near RT RIC in TS
                 Role of E2-Node in TS
                 TS Example Scenario

Section 8: Network Slicing in 5G O-RAN
                 What Is A Network Slice
                 Example of Network Slicing in 5G
                 Single Network Slice Selection Assistance Information (S-NSSAI)
                 Network Slice Subnet Instance (NSSI)
                 Network Slicing Management Model: CSMF, NSMF,NSSMF
                 Network Slice Template (NST)
                 Open Network Automation Platform (ONAP) Architecture
                 ONAP based O-RAN Network Slicing Architecture
                 Network Slice Instance Creation Procedure Using ONAP based Network Slicing

Section 9: Other O-RAN Use Case
                 Use Case: NSSI Resource Allocation Optimization
                 NSSI Resource Allocation Optimization Procedure
                 Flow Diagram: NSSI Resource Allocation Optimization
                 Use Case: Flight Path Based Dynamic UAV Radio Resource Allocation
                 Flight Path Based Dynamic UAV Radio Resource Allocation Procedure
                 Flow Diagram: Flight Path Based Dynamic UAV Radio Resource Allocation