This Telco Cloud Reference Architecture Guide provides guidance for designing and deploying a Telco Cloud Platform 5G Edition (Core) or Telco Cloud Platform RAN solution. This guide replaces the existing individual reference architecture guides for the Telco Cloud Infrastructure (Cloud Director and OpenStack Editions), Telco Cloud Platform 5G Edition, and Telco Cloud Platform RAN solutions.

You can use this combined telco cloud reference architecture guide as a single reference point for Telco Cloud network designs that encompass multiple components distributed across the VMware Telco Cloud Platform ecosystem.

Intended Audience

This guide is intended for telecommunications and solution architects, sales engineers, field consultants, advanced services specialists, and customers who are responsible for the design, deployment, and operations of Telco Clouds, Virtualized Network Functions (VNFs), Cloud Native (or containerized) Network Functions (CNFs).

Acronyms and Definitions

The following table lists the acronyms used in this guide.

Acronym

Definition

AMF

Access and Mobility Management Function

AUSF

Authentication Server Function

BSS

Business Support System

CAPV

Cluster API Provider vSphere

CBRS

Citizens Broadband Radio Service

CMK

CPU Manager for Kubernetes

CNCF

Cloud Native Computing Foundation, a Linux Foundation project designed to help advance the container technology

CNF

Cloud Native Network Function, executing within a Kubernetes environment

CNI

Container Network Interface

CNS

Cloud Native Storage, a storage solution that provides comprehensive data management for Kubernetes stateful applications.

CNTT

Common NFVI Telco Task Force

CPI

Cloud Provider Interface

CRAN

Cloud (or Centralized) Radio Access Network

CSAR

Cloud Service Archive

CSI

Container Storage Interface. vSphere CSI exposes vSphere storage to containerized workloads on container orchestrators such as Kubernetes. It enables vSAN and other types of vSphere storage.

CSP

Communications Service Provider

C-VDS

Converged VDS, a vSphere managed Virtual Distributed Switch that is leveraged by NSX (formerly NSX-T Data Center)

CVDS (E)

Converged VDS, a vSphere managed Virtual Distributed Switch that is leveraged by NSX and configured with Enhanced Data Path switching

DHCP

Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol

DPDK

Data Plane Development Kit, an Intel-led packet processing acceleration technology

DRAN

Distributed Radio Access Network

EDP

Enhanced Data Path

ETSI

European Telecommunications Standards Institute

K8s

Kubernetes

LCM

Life Cycle Management

NFV

Network Functions Virtualization

NFVI

Network Functions Virtualization Infrastructure

NRF

NF Repository Function

OSS

Operational Support System

PCIe

Peripheral Component Interconnect Express

PCF

Policy Control Function

PCRF

Policy and Charging Rule Function

PSA

Pod Security Admission

PV

Persistent Volume

PVC

Persistent Volume Claim

QCI

Quality of Service Class Identifier

RAN

Radio Access Network

RRU

Remote Radio Unit

RU

Radio Unit

SMF

Session Management Function

SBA

Service-Based Architecture

SBI

Service-Based Interface

SR-IOV

Single Root Input/Output Virtualization

STP

Spanning Tree Protocol

SVI

Switched Virtual Interface

SVNFM

Specialized VNF Manager

TCA

Telco Cloud Automation

TCA-CP

Telco Cloud Automation-Control Plane

ToR Switch

Top-of-Rack Switch

UDM

Unified Data Management

UDR

Unified Data Repository

VDS

vSphere Distributed Switch

VNF

Virtual Network Function

VNFM

Virtual Network Function Manager