Don’t miss integrated demonstration of OPEN-O at Mobile World Congress

At China Mobile’s booth (Hall 1 Stand 1G50), you’ll see a demo that is the result of extensive collaboration between China Mobile, Intel and Wind River.

The demo features Augmented Reality as a Mobile Edge Computing (MEC) application, running on a highly-available C-RAN (Cloud RAN ) platform, all orchestrated by the Open-O framework.

Here are some of the details of this demo, highlighted, but if you are taking a trip it will be worth stopping by and seeing it for yourself, during MWC to learn more.

By way of background, OPEN-O is a Linux Foundation Collaborative Project aimed at creating an open-source, carrier grade orchestration platform.

OPEN-O is intended to establish an open framework to orchestrate end-to-end composite services across legacy networks, leveraging Software Defined Networking (SDN) and Network Functions Virtualisation (NFV) infrastructure. OPEN-O is used in the services layer to create and manage end-to-end services over any network. OPEN-O works with multiple SDN controllers, Network Management Systems (NMSs), Element Management Systems (EMSs), VNF Managers (VNFMs) and Virtualised Infrastructure Managers (VIMs) to create end-to-end services.

Even for a telco-focused post, that seems like a record number of acronyms in a single paragraph.

The C-RAN (Cloud RAN ) concept is well established as an opportunity for service providers to reduce OPEX through improved resource utilisation thanks to virtualisation. At the same time, by effectively locating a data centre at the network edge Mobile Edge Computing (MEC) enables service providers to deliver new, value-added services that boost their top-line revenue.

Augmented Reality is the perfect example of such a value-added service, applicable to retail, gaming, healthcare, industrial and other applications. It also offers a compelling tradeshow experience, which is why it was selected as a suitable way to showcase infrastructure based OPEN-O at MWC.

China Mobile’s demo will feature OPEN-O as the service orchestrator managing Virtual Network Functions (VNFs) to deploy the Augmented Reality service running on a virtual eNodeB at the C-RAN node.

All these functions are running on the Wind River Titanium Cloud virtualisation platform, selected in order to guarantee the level of uptime that service providers require while at the same time delivering the ultra-low latency network performance that is critical for edge applications like C-RAN, MEC and virtual eNodeB.

The hardware platform for the demo is a Huawei COTS X6800 server based on an Intel Broadwell 2.3G processor.

In the demo, a smartphone connects via a fully virtualised (Layer 1 – 3) basestation to a virtual EPC, running on the Titanium Cloud platform and orchestrated by OPEN-O. The MEC-based Augmented Reality application is integrated into the C-RAN system which enables cloud computing capabilities and an IT service environment at the edge of the cellular network.

China Mobile, Intel and Wind River have worked closely to implement this end-to-end C-RAN system that includes a fully-virtualised base station and the Augmented Reality MEC application, all orchestrated by the OPEN-O framework.

If you are at MMC, stop by China Mobile’s booth so that you can see the real-life demo. And if you won’t have the opportunity to see the demo there, please feel free to contact the companies and they can arrange for you to see it elsewhere.

Courtesy of Wind River.