Rakuten Symphony Validates Rocky Linux as High-Performance, Cost-Efficient OS on Rakuten Mobile Network in Japan

The Challenge

In modern telecom networks, Distributed Unit (DU) deployment results in a large number of locally deployed sites that require individual operating system licenses and support, which is not economically sustainable. In addition, the high-performance requirements demanded by the radio processing workloads for 5G and Open RAN cannot be met by generic operating system solutions.

Rakuten Symphony needed a real-time, open source operating system for handling low-latency and performance-oriented workloads with an economic model that works at scale. Building a custom OS is technically challenging with multiple dependencies, so they required a partner with deep-domain expertise that could provide ongoing support and maintenance.