n (CU/DU/RU or ISC), core network software components can be integrated into the CU component of the system or hosted as a cloud service in a local (Metro Edge Compute) or remote server. In private/small-network deployments, the core network is sup- plied by the same vendor as the radio system and thus no interoperability challenges are expected. A real-life example: enterprise 5G networking Say, the task at hand is to look at dimensioning and design a system to support a 5G private net- work. First thing is to establish requirements which is a process that covers the systems architec- ture team, marketing, and other customer facing organizations as well as hardware and software teams. We need to establish the use case for the networking by answering a set of questions: Consider the following topics discussed in the subsequent sections: Network installation and maintenance. Who will run the network? Self-install versus professional install. A professional install comes with high installation cost which can be prohibitive to customer pickup. But a self-install capable system needs Chapter 1 Open radio access network overview 35 to be much more "foolproof," and this can have low-level impact on hardware and software requirements: Consider whether the front, mid-, and backhaul ports in the system are allowed to be associated (labeled!) with specific physical interfaces on the hardware or the customer should "just" be allowed to plug any wire into any port. This can impact hardware (need for a switch?) and software (a control layer that assigns internal and external IP addressing and routing tables appropriately). There is obvious boot flow and automated software install impact. Who is the system integrator? As in so many IT-related areas, 5G/private network equipment is made by combining hardware and software from multiple vendors. This combining and integration effort is the job of the system integrator which is the vendor that combines all the hardware/software and system integration aspects and delivers (and opti