Introducing OCI Telco Landing Zone

Oracle is pleased to announce the availability of Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI) Telco Landing Zone, a frictionless deployment tool designed to establish a secure and scalable foundation for telecommunications workloads. It installs the OCI services and telecommunications (telco)-specific components required to support the setup and operation of all telco workloads, including 5G core cloud native network functions (CNFs) and virtual network functions (VNFs). OCI Telco Landing Zone’s user-friendly deployment and extensive capabilities make it essential for accelerating project timelines and ensuring seamless deployments.

As communications service providers (CSPs) strive to meet the evolving demands of high bandwidth, ultra-low latency, massive device connectivity, enhanced capacity, improved spectrum efficiency, network slicing, and enhanced mobility, the need for advanced infrastructure solutions becomes paramount. CSPs construct 5G networks using components from multiple vendors who each have unique infrastructure requirements, which further compounds the complexity of the infrastructure architecture.

Automation is crucial for navigating these challenges. OCI Telco Landing Zone addresses the stringent infrastructure needs by incorporating automation to provide a preconfigured, secure, and scalable environment that facilitates the quick and easy deployment of 5G core applications on Oracle public and dedicated regions. It includes all necessary infrastructure and services, such as compute, networks, storage, security, and an automation suite for 5G core network functions. It streamlines network function onboarding and deployment, reduces operational costs, and enhances agility and scalability, enabling efficient 5G network management.

OCI Telco Landing Zone ensures high availability, scalability, and security. At the infrastructure level, it uses OCI’s physical and logical resources, such as regions, availability domains, and fault domains to enhance resiliency. It also incorporates a comprehensive suite of preconfigured security services to protect telco workloads from potential threats. Its modular and repeatable architecture enables scalability, allowing telcos to efficiently manage their growing 5G network demands. OCI Telco Landing Zone definitions are crafted based on reference network function cloud deployment architecture to support telcos’ use of multiple network function vendors in building their 5G mobile core, and it possesses the capability for workload expansion and customization, allowing for the accommodation of deployment-specific architecture components tailored to different network function vendors.

Support for 5G control and data plane functions

5G networks comprise both control plane and user plane functions, each with distinct infrastructure requirements. OCI Telco Landing Zone supports both types of functions, providing a set of automated preconfigured environments to help configure OCI cloud tenancies for mobile network functions.

5G control plane functions demand a cloud native environment with robust and scalable infrastructure. Moreover, high-performance servers are essential to manage the multitude of signalling messages with minimal latency, crucial for tasks like user session setup, authentication, and traffic routing within the 5G network.

5G data plane functions face the challenge of managing vast data traffic, necessitating high-bandwidth and scalable network infrastructure to accommodate increasing demands while maintaining low-latency connectivity. The packet core, which comprises the user plane function, has specific requirements, such as single root IO virtualization (SR-IOV), Multus, a CNI plugin for Kubernetes, and data plane development kit (DPDK). These requirements are addressed during the Oracle Container Engine for Kubernetes ( OKE) cluster deployment phase of the OCI Telco Landing Zone setup.

The Telco landing zone is comprised of Terraform modules, architectural documentation, and an implementation guide to aid users in quickly and securely creating a foundation for their cloud deployment based on Oracle recommendations, customer experience, and industry-standard best practices.

OCI Telco Landing Zones: Baseline reference architecture

The OCI Telco Landing Zone architecture provides a robust and secure foundation specifically designed for deploying 5G core networks on OCI. This preconfigured environment allows for quick and easy deployment while offering key features to cater to telco needs.

The architecture has the following features and benefits:

• Structured compartmentalization: The architecture starts with a well-defined compartment structure within the tenancy, incorporating groups and policies for effective segregation of duties. This setup ensures clear ownership and control over resources.
• Flexible VCN configuration: OCI Telco Landing Zone empowers customers to create multiple virtual cloud networks (VCNs) in standalone mode. This flexibility allows for granular control over network traffic and isolation, enabling customers to group different workloads into separate VCNs based on their specific needs and security requirements.
• Preconfigured security: Each VCN comes preconfigured with essential routing and security measures, ensuring secure inbound and outbound traffic. Additionally, OCI Telco Landing Zone integrates a comprehensive suite of preconfigured security services, such as Oracle Cloud Guard, Flow Logs, Vault with customer-managed keys, Vulnerability Scanning Service, Bastion, and Security Zones, providing an extra layer of protection for the deployed 5G core network. OCI Telco Landing Zone meets the CIS 2.0 benchmark and is an extension of OCI Center for Internet Security (CIS) Landing Zone.
• Orchestrating cloud native workloads with OKE: The OCI Telco Landing Zone architecture includes OKE as a core component for orchestrating cloud native workloads. OKE automates the deployment, scaling, and lifecycle management of containerized applications within the VCNs, ensuring efficient resource utilization and dynamic scaling to handle traffic fluctuations in telco networks.
• Performance optimization: To address the demanding performance requirements of telco networks, OCI Telco Landing Zone provides capabilities like SR-IOV, Multus, and DPDK. These capabilities enable efficient network IO, allowing for high-performance data processing and low latency, crucial for delivering a seamless 5G experience.

Conclusion

With OCI Telco Landing Zone, CSPs can accelerate their journey towards 5G success, delivering seamless connectivity experiences and driving transformative change in the telecommunications industry.

Experience the power of Oracle Cloud Infrastructure Telco Landing Zone and embark on your 5G innovation journey today. For more information, see the Oracle Quick Start on GitHub.