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