Juniper Networks and Wind River cut TCO for vRAN and ORAN deployments with combined solution

As communications service providers (CSPs) look toward implementing virtualized and Open RAN in their networks, there are some key basic requirements:

1. The solution must perform as good or better than traditional RAN equipment.

2. The solution must provide the flexibility to take advantage of new use cases expected from 5G.

3. The solution must be delivered at or below the total cost of ownership (TCO) vs. traditional RAN equipment.

Point one is being proven in the market today, as evidenced by Verizon’s experience rolling out 10,000+ edge sites. Point two will be proven as new edge cases are developed and deployed. Point three, TCO, is clearly important to CSPs and there has been some good progress but there is still work to be done. In this blog, we review how lower TCO can be achieved in distributed RAN (D-RAN) deployments through a combination of solutions from Wind River and Juniper Networks. 

Juniper Cloud-Native Router

Many factors determine the total cost of ownership for a router at a cell site, including both CapEx and OpEx. Starting with CapEx, the Juniper Cloud-Native Router takes advantage of the ODU hardware already at the site, saving on new hardware, shipping, installation, power, cooling and leased space costs. While the Juniper Cloud-Native Router does not require its own equipment, it does have a minimum set of hardware requirements. The Cloud-Native Router typically requires 2-3 processor cores which should be planned for when choosing the O-DU hardware. Compared to a separate physical router, allocating CPU cores costs significantly less.  

Less physical equipment also has a significant impact on power and cooling. A typical physical router in an edge environment requires about 150-250W. Running the Juniper Cloud-Native Router on existing hardware draws minimal additional watts, which provides significant savings in both power and cooling on an operational basis, especially when multiplied across thousands of cell sites.

Running on existing hardware with the ODU means the Cloud-Native Router requires zero additional space. It also takes advantage of the OS and Kubernetes already running on that hardware, so the only software cost is the subscription cost for the Juniper Cloud-Native Router itself. 

Lastly, using the Cloud-Native Router helps support sustainability efforts from reduced shipping and packaging to reduced e-waste and recycling requirements by taking advantage of existing hardware needed for other functions. 

Wind River Studio

Juniper Cloud-Native Router is supported by Wind River Studio cloud infrastructure software which provides additional contributions to TCO savings with its ability to run with extreme efficiency. A study published by Analysys Mason in 2022 found that Wind River Studio could deliver up to 30% TCO reduction vs. traditional RAN, mainly due to three key elements:

1. Highly performant, hyper-converged O-cloud

• Wind River Studio’s hyper-converged control plane architecture consumes  a single core of Intel 4th Generation Xeon Processors. Reduced core utilization for infrastructure frees up remaining cores to run workloads such as Juniper Cloud-Native Router, which can reduce hardware needs. The system can also run on a single server or dual servers for high availability. These factors reduce the number of servers, and resulting power supply, per cell site.

2. Zero-touch automation

• Operations costs are kept under control via zero-touch automation and orchestration that spans the entire lifecycle, including Day 0 deployment (remote, automated software installation), Day 1 (preparation for operation, tests and validations) and Day 2+ ongoing live operations (self-healing, self-optimization, updates and upgrades with CI/CD.)

3. Strong, pre-validated ecosystem

• A pre-validated ecosystem of vRAN and Open RAN vendors that work with Wind River Studio provides an open, standards-based full-featured stack to reduce integration costs and time to test/deploy. Pre-integrating with Juniper Cloud-Native Router ensures that service providers can realize the combined benefits of both solutions.

The combined solution of the Juniper Cloud-Native Router plus Wind River Studio provides multiple opportunities for cost savings at the edge with the ability to consolidate what would otherwise be multiple pieces of hardware down to one or two servers at a far edge site. This reduces not only the initial purchase of hardware but also saves on ongoing power, cooling and space costs. These CapEx savings, combined with the operational benefits of zero-touch automation, helps service providers build an Open RAN solution to achieve lower TCO vs. traditional RAN. It also allows them to start reaping the benefits of new 5G use cases enabled by the flexibility of an Open RAN network.  

To see the Juniper Cloud-Native Router running on Wind River Studio visit here.

To learn more please visit:

Wind River Studio

Wind River Telecommunications

Juniper Cloud Native Router

Cloud-Native Routers: Transforming the Economics of Distributed Networks

About the authors: 

Randy Cox, Vice President, Product Management, Intelligent Cloud, Wind River, 

Mathias Kokot, Vice President, PLM Software, Juniper