Nokia and Red Hat collaborate for enhanced telecommunications solutions

Nokia and Red Hat have announced a partnership aimed at developing telecommunications solutions of high quality. The agreement involves integrating Nokia’s core network applications with Red Hat’s OpenStack Platform and OpenShift. The two companies will jointly support existing customers of Nokia Container Services (NCS) and Nokia CloudBand Infrastructure Software (CBIS), while also providing a migration path for customers to transition to Red Hat’s platforms over time. Additionally, Nokia plans to utilize Red Hat’s infrastructure platforms to facilitate faster development and testing of its core network portfolio.

Under this partnership, Nokia customers will continue to receive direct support from Nokia, while Red Hat will offer ongoing development, services, and advanced care for NCS and CBIS. Red Hat and Nokia will collaborate to ensure a smooth transition for customers who choose to migrate to Red Hat’s platforms. Some Nokia cloud infrastructure teams will also transition to Red Hat, providing continued roadmap evolution, deployment services, and support on behalf of Nokia to its customers.

The integration and interoperability of various ecosystem components are crucial as service providers explore the possibilities with 5G technology, including core network, open RAN, multi-access edge computing (MEC), and application modernization. Flexibility and options for deploying applications and services on preferred infrastructure and locations are in high demand. The key outcomes of this partnership are as follows:

– Nokia will adopt Red Hat as its primary cloud infrastructure platform for the development, testing, and delivery of its core network applications.

– Nokia will maintain support for its core network applications on the Nokia NCS and CBIS platform offerings.

– Nokia’s core network applications will be tightly integrated with Red Hat’s OpenStack Platform and OpenShift, which is a leading hybrid cloud application platform based on Kubernetes.

– Nokia will certify its core network cloud-native network functions (CNFs) and virtualized network functions (VNFs) on Red Hat’s platforms, providing deployment options on bare-metal, virtualized, and public cloud telco infrastructure offerings, including those from Amazon Web Services, Google, Microsoft, and others.

Customers of Nokia’s cloud infrastructure platform will have access to Red Hat’s open source ecosystem, benefiting from its comprehensive support and transformative 4G and 5G technologies and use cases. By combining Nokia’s expertise in 5G with Red Hat’s open hybrid cloud vision, customers will be able to transition their core network infrastructure and applications to a fully cloud-native and future-ready state, with service and support from Red Hat as the industry advances towards edge computing.

Fran Heeran, Senior Vice President & General Manager of Core Networks, Cloud and Network Services at Nokia, stated that this partnership allows Nokia to offer customers its top-notch core network applications alongside Red Hat’s exceptional cloud infrastructure, which is renowned for its open source technology.

Darrell Jordan-Smith, Senior Vice President of Telecommunications, Media and Entertainment & Edge at Red Hat, emphasized the significance of 5G and its potential to revolutionize businesses and industries. Red Hat is confident that their multicloud, cloud-native infrastructure, combined with Nokia’s core network applications, will enable service providers to leverage the opportunities presented by 5G by deploying their networks using Red Hat’s OpenStack Platform and OpenShift.