Objective
As XGVela Telco PaaS has rich feature set to manage and monitor Network functions, this paper trying to evaluate the fitment of XGVela to Telco PaaS requirements of Project Sylva and identify integration gaps and aligning roadmaps.
About Project Sylva
The project Sylva is an industry grade cloud native platform to cover telco and edge use cases. Started as exploratory mode by 5 carriers Deutsche Telekom, Telefonica, Telecom Italia, Vodafone ,Orange and Two network vendors Ericsson and Nokia. It defines a framework with all prerequisites - 5G, OpenRAN, EDGE cases and provides reference implementation covering specific Hardware, network cards, GPU with multi tenancy, service mesh advanced security, sustainability features.
Key Objectives:
- Simplify & Automate the operational model
- Interoperability - Validation program, large adoption
- Reduce the fragmentation of the Telco Cloud
- Reduce Cost (opensource, mutualization) and avoid lock-in
Sylva is amalgamation of multiple open source components from CNCF, LF Networking and Edge. It consists of IaaS, CaaS and PaaS layers. Even Though the primary focus Kubernetes, it also has legacy support of Openstack, VMware etc.,
About XGVela
XGVela is a telecom cloud native PaaS platform for 5G and future network cloud. It is targeting on delivering common and reusable PaaS capabilities required in the processes of network function development/running, network cloud management/maintenance, network cloud capability exposure and etc., so that applications are lightweight and contain only code to deliver the intended business logic. Also its management-related Telco PaaS functions implements services, configuration management, fault management, log management, performance management, topology management and high availability for the managed NFs.
XGVela High-Level Architecture:
To distinguish from the existing PaaS implementations in the open-source communities, XGVela divides PaaS capabilities into three categories:
Category 1: General PaaS
Represented by the blue block in Figure.
General PaaS can provide the abstract tools, services and environment required in the process of development, deployment, running, operation and management of applications and their associated services.
General PaaS capabilities are standard cloud capability which can be offered by any cloud provider, and it will have the capabilities to be shared by a number of industry specific PaaS including Telco PaaS.
In short, General PaaS refers to commonly used PaaS capabilities by all industries (e.g. service mesh, API GW, LB, observability) and existing open-source PaaS implementations (e.g. Istio, envoy, Zookeeper, Grafana). XGVela takes those implementations for integration instead of re-inventing the wheels.
Category 2: Adaptation Layer
Represented by the yellow block in Figure.
Adaptation Layer is unique enhancement of General PaaS capability when applied to telecom scenario. To avoid coupling with General PaaS, the enhancement would be implemented in the form of plug-ins, drivers, and other non-invasive forms.
In telecom scenario, the General PaaS capability is usually used in combination with corresponding adaptation layer enhancement points. For example, many load balancer software supports HTTP, TCP, UDP, while for 5G network functions, e.g. UPF, protocols like PFCP, GTPU are used in control plane and data plane flow. If a developer wants to use existing open-source load balancer in 5G core, PFCP and GTPU protocol analysis capability should be enhanced for that LB and delivered together with the LB to provide service.
Category 3: Telco PaaS
Represented by green block in Figure.
Telco PaaS focuses on delivering telecom specific PaaS capabilities, which implements telecom features such as multi-tenancy, multiple network plane, network function topology, network function configuration, etc. These capabilities are used to serve telecom network functions and telecom management systems. Some Telco PaaS needs to interwork with General PaaS to deliver complete PaaS service.
The above three categories of PaaS capabilities together constitute XGVela, which provides all "platform" services for cloud native Telecom workloads. Developers can make combinations freely of general PAAS, general PAAS + adaptation and telco PAAS based on requirements.
How XGVela Complements Sylva for Telco PaaS
Next Steps
| # | Activity | Remarks | Priority |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Prepare a Demo to showcase XGVela deployment along with Sylva on one Cloud Provider/Baremetal, possibly along with sample network function to walkthrough Telco cloud feature set. | ||
| 2 | Identify the integration touch points and its gaps (if any) surfaced as part of demo activity and plan in XGVela Roadmap | ||
| 3 | Adoption Layer to General PaaS : Usage of Cloud Provider's native observability components (like AWS cloudwatch etc) for XGVela Telco PaaS layer |
Reference Documents:
| # | Name | URL |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | XGVela Technical Architecture | XGVela Technical Architecture - XGVela - LF Networking Confluence |