Nokia to integrate core network applications with Red Hat infra platforms

Red Hat will serve as the primary reference platform for Nokia as it develops, tests and delivers its core network applications.

Red Hat announced today that it will “tightly integrate” Nokia’s core network applications with Red Hat OpenStack Platform and Red Hat OpenShift. The deal will also allow Nokia to leverage Red Hat’s infrastructure platforms to enable faster development and testing of its core network portfolio.

In addition, the agreement will see the pair jointly develop a path for existing Nokia Container Services (NCS) and Nokia CloudBand Infrastructure Software (CBIS) customers to migrate to Red Hat’s platforms. “As customer cloud strategies evolve, Red Hat and Nokia will support a smooth transition path for customers who choose to migrate to Red Hat’s platforms,” Red Hat explained further in a press release, adding Nokia cloud infrastructure teams will transition to Red Hat to “provide continued roadmap evolution, deployment services and support on behalf of Nokia to its customers.”

For both Nokia and Red Hat, ecosystem integration and interoperability have emerged as an obvious necessity as network advancements like 5G, Open RAN and multi-access edge computing (MEC) continue to change the game for service providers and their customers. The collaboration, then, according to the companies, will help deliver the unprecedented level of flexibility and agility that service providers need today to offer new applications and services.

“With this partnership, Red Hat will now serve as Nokia’s primary platform to develop, test and deliver our core network applications. Additionally, Red Hat will assume responsibility for the ongoing evolution [of] and provide full support to Nokia for the continuity of our cloud infrastructure business,” said Fran Heeran, senior vice president & general manager of Core Networks, Cloud and Network Services at Nokia in a press video.

Nokia will also certify its core network cloud-native network functions (CNFs) and virtualized network functions (VNFs) on Red Hat OpenShift and Red Hat OpenStack Platform with customer deployment options on bare-metal, virtualized and public cloud telco infrastructure offerings, including those from Amazon Web Services, Google, Microsoft and others.

“Nokia cloud infrastructure platform customers will have the full service and support of Red Hat’s open source ecosystem and access to Red Hat’s transformative 4G and 5G technologies and use cases,” the companies stated. “By combining Nokia’s 5G expertise with Red Hat’s open hybrid cloud vision, customers will be able to transform their core network infrastructure and applications to be fully cloud-native and future-ready with service and support from Red Hat as the industry accelerates to the edge.”