How Rakuten is writing the automation rulebook for 5G

In this podcast Principal Analyst, Anil Rao discusses network automation with Rahul Atri, Managing Director, Rakuten Mobile Singapore. (00:00) Anil introduces us to how the telecoms industry is responding to the challenges and opportunities of automation and Rahul explains why Rakuten made automation a fundamental part of its approach   (09:00) vRAN automation use case – how deployment time per site was reduced from 6 days 8.5 minutes   (12:00) The foundational principles of extreme automation at Rakuten; with examples of edge data centre deployment automation and more discussion about vRAN   (17:00) The current state of automation at Rakuten; successes and challenges   (28:00) Rakuten Communications Platform, the layered architecture, infrastructure, orchestration engine, observability framework   (35:00) Rakuten Communications Platform and industry standards, collaborating with vendor partners to build open solutions and the pitfalls of too many standards. Balancing standards with optimisation, customisation, and innovation   (44:00) Making DevOps, continuous integration (CI) and continuous delivery (CD) work with partners   (48:00) Riding the Open-source wave   (54.00) OpenRAN and remote interface control (RIC)   (57:42) Machine learning and artificial intelligence; use case examples including self-healing automation   (01:06:00) What to expect in 2021   (01:10:00) Recommendations to communications service providers and vendor partners