Hewlett Packard Enterprise announced HPE RAN Automation, a service management and orchestration solution that provides multi-vendor management and automation for any Radio Access Network (RAN) and helps communications service providers increase operational efficiency and accelerate deployment. This pre-integrated cloud-native solution, delivered as a service, leverages HPE operations support systems and artificial intelligence and machine learning (AI/ML) technologies to offer zero-touch management of multi-vendor RAN infrastructure. The solution orchestrates the full life-cycle of both virtual Distributed Units (vDUs) and virtual Centralized Units (vCUs), enabling operators to dynamically configure radio frequency parameters and optimize the use of radio access resources and spectrum.

HPE RAN Automation is delivered as a service on a public or private cloud as a pre-integrated set of capabilities and operated centrally by HPE offering the following: Fully-automated lifecycle management with AI/ML powered assurance – detects anomalies, predict failures, correlate information across the hardware and software layers, perform advanced analytics and send actionable signals to the appropriate components to take action according to the specific use cases. Asingle secure web user interface – allows operators to interact with the different functions of the platform with single sign-on authentication. A consistent set of management capabilities across heterogeneous hosting environments, compliant with ETSI specifications – supports operators by providing the ability to onboard and deploy third party RAN vDU and vCU network functions.

HPE RAN Automation follows the principles of O-RAN Alliance's Service Management and Orchestration (SMO) architecture which provides the capability to provision, monitor and operate all layers of the disaggregated RAN from infrastructure to RAN software. Furthermore, continuous integration and continuous delivery (CI/CD) practices ensure that HPE RAN Automation is constantly updated according to the latest O-RAN standards and integrates seamlessly with the latest software updates from RAN partners. The first step operators usually face is the rollout of RAN optimized hardware across thousands of distributed sites.

HPE RAN Automation addresses this challenge and supports operators with a step-by-step approach as they move towards Open RAN, by utilising the HPE Resource Aggregator for Open Distributed Infrastructure Management, a DMTF Redfish based open-source framework to manage diverse edge infrastructure. Once the infrastructure and the network functions are in place, HPE RAN Automation supports further advanced AI capabilities and standardized interfaces to offer O-RAN compliant non-real-time RAN Intelligent Controller (RIC) functionality and host a suite of radio network applications (rApps) from HPE and partners. Initial deployments of HPE RAN Automation will include a radio frequency (RF) configuration and optimization module.

This capability is integrated with the AI/ML assurance and orchestration modules to automate RF parameters provisioning and operations according to specific services and policies set by the operators. HPE RAN Automation is a key part of the HPE Open RAN Solution Stack and has been validated and optimized for the HPE ProLiant DL110 Gen10 Plus – Telco server, the Open RAN workload optimized server, enabling fast deployment of Open RAN. Availability: The solution is ready for demos and early trials.