Network Software is depicted in Figure below, additionally reflecting the O-RAN functional partitioning into O-RU (Radio Unit), O-DU (Distributed Unit), and O-CU (Centralized Unit) and RIC (RAN Intelligent Controller).
Network Software is a central part of cloud-native, virtualized networking solutions.The Network Software consists of the following product groups:
All network functionalities are provided as a set of Virtual Network Functions (VNFs). They are not only disaggregated at the level of hardware-software separation but also are highly granularized so that can be easily used independently. Such freedom implemented from the start, allows IS-Wireless Network Software to support any possible split and use of any computing resources. This is depicted in the figure below, which also summarizes the roles of software modules. gNodeB and eNodeB are composed of 3GPP Stack and Virtualization Component (VC). 3GPP Stack is a 3GPP compliant implementation of 4G and 5G protocols stack. VC provides a set of libraries for managing computationally intense, Real-Time VNFs of the RAN protocols. 3GPP Stack and VC implementing 4G LTE correspond to eNodeB, while 3GPP Stack and VC implementing 5G-NR correspond to gNodeB.