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Virtual Core Market research Report 2022: The Gateway to the Real 5G - ResearchAndMarkets.com

The "Virtual Core - Gateway to the Real 5G" report has been added to ResearchAndMarkets.com's offering.

This report concentrates on the market for virtualized Core.

The journey towards SA core is clearly not as smooth as was envisioned. This report looks at the who and the how and the when of the adoption status.

Considering that containers do technically qualify as VNFs, and most VNF vendors have containerization of network functions on their radars anyway, we had to relook at the earlier characterizations.

5G SA is clearly taking longer than anticipated. The reasons are many - telco ennui with the constant architectural flux without commensurate returns being the main one. Telcos have had their fingers burnt with the seemingly never-ending development cycle of a reliable and acceptable MANO.

The report now considers two types of virtualized cores:

  • Virtual machine (VM)-based virtualized Core
  • Container-based virtualized Core

Report Breakdown

The Executive Summary provides an overview of the market size of one of the most potent network functions (NF) in mobile telephony - the core; in the context of the efforts to virtualize them; into virtual machines and containers.

Chapter 2, The Core Journey, highlights the different stages and phases in the journey of the mobile core from 2G through 5G.

Chapter 3, VNFs - VMs and Containers, compares and contrasts the origins, morphologies and features of the principal actors in this report - VNFs. More specifically, it defines containers and microservices and discusses their morphology and implementation methodology. It also traces the NFV evolution and establishes the link between VMs and containers.

Chapter 4, Telco Profiles, examines the approach adopted by leading telcos vis-a-vis containerization and virtualization of the Core.

Chapter 5, Solution Provider Profiles, identifies and categorises the vendors or solution providers; and analyses their initiatives in the context of the network functions covered.

Chapter 6, Quantitative Forecasts, covers the quantitative forecasts in providing ringside as well as inside views of the VM and Container-based Core markets by breaking them along morphology, geographical region, deployment methodology, hosting mode, end-user and application criteria.

Key Topics Covered:

1. Executive Summary

1.1 The Delayed Standalone Mode Rollout

1.1.1 Core Market Segmentation, by Virtualization Type

1.2 Report Organization and Market Forecast Taxonomy

2. The Core Journey

2.1 The Core and its Evolution

2.2 Contours of EPC

2.2.1 SAE and the Flat Architecture

2.2.2 Decoupling of Planes

2.2.3 NAS

2.2.4 Blocks in the EPC

2.2.4.1 SGW

2.2.4.2 PGW

2.2.4.3 ePDG

2.2.4.4 TWAG

2.2.4.5 MME

2.2.4.6 HSS

2.2.4.7 Other optional elements

2.3 The 5G Core (5GC)

2.3.1 SA versus NSA

2.3.2 NEC Converged Core

2.3.3 5GC Functions

2.4 Virtualization of the Core

2.4.1 Contrary, yet Complementary Trends

2.4.2 The Optimized Spending Pattern

2.4.3 The Mechanics

2.4.4 The Challenges

3. VNFs - VMs and Containers

3.1 VM-based VNFs

3.1.1 History and Progression

3.1.2 NFV architecture

3.1.2.1 VNFi/NFVi

3.1.2.2 VNFs

3.1.2.3 MANO

3.2 Containers - The Challengers

3.2.1 What are Containers?

3.2.2 Microservices

3.2.3 Container Morphology

3.2.3.1 Provisioning and Run-time Management Block

3.2.3.1.1 Docker Engine

3.2.3.2 Orchestration Block

3.2.3.2.1 Kubernetes

3.2.3.3 Application Deployment Block

3.2.4 Container Deployment Methodologies

3.2.4.1 Virtual Machine (VM)

3.2.4.2 Bare Metal

3.2.4.3 Cloud or Container as-a-Service (CaaS)

3.2.5 Stateful and Stateless Containers

3.2.6 CNCF and CNFs

3.3 Contrasting Containers and VMs

3.4 Advantage Container-based VNFs

3.4.1 Freedom from Hypervisors

3.4.2 File-level Resource Management

3.4.3 Portability

3.4.4 Microservices-powered Scalability and Granularity

3.4.5 Quick Operationalization

3.4.6 Quick Orchestration with a Caveat

3.4.7 Containers and 5G

3.5 Challenges Confronting Container-based VNFs

3.5.1 Familiarity with VMs

3.5.2 Telco Demands

3.5.3 Latency

3.5.4 Security

3.5.5 Flexibility

3.5.6 Hardware Enhancements

3.6 Blending Containers with NFV

3.6.1 NFVi and CNF

3.6.2 MANO and Containers

3.6.2.1 ONAP and CNFs

3.6.2.2 OSM and CNFs

4. Telco Profiles

4.1 Telcos - Cautious, Yet Optimistic About 5G-SA

4.2 Telco profiles

4.3 Airtel

4.3.1 Core Virtualization Initiatives

4.4 AT&T

4.5 BT

4.6 China Mobile

4.7 China Telecom

4.8 China Unicom

4.9 Deutsche Telekom

4.10 Etisalat

4.11 Jio

4.12 KDDI

4.13 KT

4.14 LG Uplus

4.15 Lifecell Ukraine

4.16 M1 Singapore

4.17 NTT DoCoMo

4.18 Ooredoo

4.19 Optus (Singtel Optus)

4.20 Orange

4.21 Rakuten

4.22 Saudi Telecom (STC)

4.23 Singtel

4.24 SK Telecom

4.25 Softbank

4.26 Swisscom

4.27 T-Mobile

4.28 TIM/Telecom Italia

4.29 Telenor

4.30 Telefonica

4.31 Telia

4.32 Telkom Indonesia

4.33 Telstra

4.34 Turk Telecom

4.35 Turkcell

4.36 Veon VimpelCom

4.37 Verizon

4.38 Vodafone

5. Solution Provider Profiles

5.1 Organization Categories

5.1.1 Equipment Vendors

5.1.2 Independent Software Vendors (ISV)

5.1.3 Semiconductor Specialists

5.1.4 Hardware, OS and Firmware Specialists

5.1.5 Niche Solution Developers

5.2 Mergers and Funding Related Developments

5.3 Company Profiles

5.4 6WIND

5.5 Affirmed Networks

5.6 Athonet

5.7 Baicells

5.8 Cirrus Core Networks (CCN)

5.9 Cisco Systems

5.10 Dell EMC

5.11 Enea

5.12 Ericsson

5.13 Huawei

5.14 Intel

5.15 Mavenir

5.16 Metaswitch

5.17 NEC/Netcracker

5.18 Nokia

5.19 Oracle

5.20 Red Hat

5.21 Samsung

5.22 VMware

5.23 Wind River

5.24 ZTE

5.25 Casa Systems

5.26 HPE

6. Quantitative Forecasts

6.1 Research Methodology

6.2 Forecast Taxonomy

6.3 Analysis of the Overall Virtualized Core Market

6.3.1 Mobile Telephony Generation

6.3.2 End-user

6.3.3 Solution Morphology

6.3.4 Hosting Mode

6.3.5 Regional Breakdown

6.4 Analysis of the VM-based Core Market

6.4.1 VM Morphology

6.4.2 End-user

6.4.3 Solution Morphology

6.4.4 Hosting Mode

6.4.5 Regional Breakdown

6.5 Analysis of the Container-based Core Market

6.5.1 Container Morphology

6.5.2 End-user

6.5.3 Solution Morphology

6.5.4 Hosting Mode

6.5.5 Deployment Methodology

6.5.6 Regional Breakdown

7. Glossary and Acronyms

For more information about this report visit https://www.researchandmarkets.com/r/qigdbl

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