NTT DATA and VMware join hands to speed up Open RAN adoption and deployment

NTT DATA and VMware, Inc. announced an expanded collaboration to accelerate the path to software-defined, large-scale Open RAN deployments through combined solutions and services. The companies will further collaborate to enable the global Communications Service Provider (CSPs) industry to continue to transform from traditional operations to more agile, cloud-smart approaches in the RAN.

NTT DATA and VMware recognize that CSPs are moving towards an Open RAN future state deployment and seeking to leverage a horizontal, modern telco cloud platform to achieve greater scale, efficiency, and agility in their radio access networks.

NTT DATA’s comprehensive CI/CD/CT framework has been adopted globally across leading operators and now incorporates enhanced support for VMware’s Telco Cloud portfolio. Going forward, the collaboration will address streamlining configuration management, multi-domain service management and orchestration (SMO).

Through this collaboration, NTT DATA and VMware will aim to expedite CSPs’ ability to leverage best practices and Open RAN large scale deployment know-how, including instantiation, configuration, testing and operation of cloud-native functions (CNFs) on either new or existing network deployments.

NTT DATA and VMware are members of the 5G Open RAN Ecosystem eXperience (OREXTM) established by NTT DOCOMO, which includes a lab to allow other CSPs to test and verify Open RAN and vRAN applications, platforms and systems.

“Telco workloads experience very consistent performance in VMware’s Telco Cloud ecosystem. We are delighted to expand our collaboration with VMware and allow customers to harness our innovations and growth opportunities,” said Marv Mouchawar, Senior Vice President, Global Innovation Headquarters, NTT DATA Corporation.

“VMware and NTT are further simplifying and accelerating the transformation of service provider networks,” said Zia Yusuf, Senior Vice President, Strategic Ecosystem and Industry Solutions, VMware. “As a GSI ecosystem partner focused on the Telco industry, NTT DATA brings a unique set of capabilities and experience to our mutual customers that enable them to adopt open, modern network approaches such as Open RAN more quickly. Through our combined solutions and services, we will help service providers expand their services portfolios, drive down the cost and complexity of their networks, and increase time to value and profitability.”