1. Proposed title of this feature request
Cloud RAN Hardware long term maintenance & support (link)

2. What is the nature and description of the request?
Telco Tier1 partner is in process of detailing Hardware LCM plan for Cloud RAN. One of the key inputs to our HW LCM is the maintenance and support commitment of CaaS provider for the underlying hardware. The RAN partner would like to understand compatibility and support plan of OCP against a specific compute server (CPU Gen).

• For instance, assuming OCP4.14 introduced the support of Dell SPR-EE & Dell have 10 years of support from server GA.
• How long will the Dell SPR-EE hardware be supported with future OCP 4.y releases.
• Does OCP have any categorization on the level of support like feature growth, SW compatibility, maintenance & support?

3. Why does the customer need this? (List the business requirements here)

• This is a requirement that Telco partner received from CSPs in RfX
  • CSPs use HW in RAN 7+ years and expect support to minimise TCO in RAN
• Telco partner doesn’t expect one OCP version which should support SPR-EE during the whole period
• Telco partner requested for at least 10 years support
• It’s a general request:
  • SPR-EE should be treated as an example only
  • OpenShift deployment agnostic

4. List any affected packages or components.