As global communications providers prepare to deliver high-speed connectivity to support new services and use cases, the need for low-latency, high-bandwidth, scalable networks is more important than ever. Conventional industry hardware won’t sustain next-generation mobile technology; the need for cloud native is essential for delivering the performance, capabilities, and automation 5G requires. Benefits include operational consistency, application resilience, simplified and responsive scaling at the microservice level, simplified integration with enterprise-facing cloud native applications, and improved portability between public, private, and hybrid cloud environments.
To address these needs, the OPNFV community began work in 2017 on a Virtual Central Office demo (VCO 1.0) to show demonstrate the interoperability of virtual components of a virtualized central office use case for NFV/SDN. This demo was shown as a keynote at the OPNFV Summit in Beijing, China, 2017. The demo has gone through several iterations, including VCO 2.0, shown as a keynote at ONS and OCP Summit in Amsterdam, a 5G Cloud Native Network demo shown as a keynote at KubeCon + CloudNativeCon in San Diego, and a 5G Cloud Native Network with ONAP shown virtually as a keynote at ONES in 2020.
Linux Foundation’s LF Networking community built a vibrant end-to-end 5G infrastructure Proof of Concept (PoC) by validating residential, enterprise, and mobile (LTE) use cases using open source and proprietary NFV/SDN technologies. In mid 2019, this working group set out to prove that an end-to-end 5G cloud native network could be built on open source cloud native infrastructure across multiple, interoperable vendors and globally dispersed labs. The strategy illustrates how to build, connect, and manage a global 5G network – including on-prem, cloud, and edge operations – on open architecture running cloud native network functions (CNFs) in Kubernetes clusters.
80+ volunteers across 4 open source communities, 15 partner companies, and 2 end users collaborated to build a live prototype unveiled during a keynote demo at KubeCon + CloudNativeCon North America 2019. The 5G network was built across PoPs in San Diego and Montreal, and an LTE network was built in France. The demo culminated in an end-to-end video call initiated on a 5G handset and radio in a faraday cage on stage, then routed through the labs and over public cloud. The Proof of Concept illustrates how the telecom industry can use cloud native architectures and open source to build out next gen networks and shows solution providers and developers what’s possible in this exciting new space.
The demo was shown as a keynote during the Open Networking and Edge Summit, Sept 28th, held virtually. Heather Kirksey and Amar Kapadia did a great job presenting the latest version of this ongoing demo which includes the use of ONAP for CNF onboarding and deployment. You can register for free to see all the sessions (including this keynote) here. You can also view the similar version that was shown in the LF Networking Booth here. Contributions to the demo from participating organizations can be seen here.
The demo has been shown at 5 separate keynotes at industry events. This demo will be brought over to this workspace and be the first demo classified as a "LFN Community Demo".
This demo originally started in 2018 as an OPNFV-centric demo and and since evolved to include 5G CNF onboarding, deployment across networks including the public cloud.
Suggestions for 2021
- Maintain, grow, and evolve the 5G Cloud Native Network Demo
- Look to add new features and expand to new use cases (e.g. 5G Network Slicing, RAN integration, etc.)
- Provide better visibility across LFN on ongoing demo status, reqs, and how to get involved
- New LFN wiki page under development
- Adding to TAC Agenda for next meeting
- Update EUAG on status, solicit feedback
- Develop a TAC-led whitepaper covering the demo
- Evolve to integrate Anuket (RC2)
- Update to ONAP Guilin (then Honolulu when available)
- Get a carrier “hands-on” partner, e.g. China Mobile
- Highlight in webinar (not wait until ONES in the fall)
- Provide detailed “How to Guide” to replicate demo in your own lab (Davide’s Reco)
- Use the demo to attract new community participants and members
- Require LFN membership for ongoing participation / marketing features
- Regular updates in LF Newsletter
- Links on LF and LFN "Resources" pages
- Tie-in to developer highlights.
- Step 1 Update to ONAP Guilin
- Step 1a- recruit ONAP demo SME
- Infra- LF hosted? leverage LaaS?
More content TBD. Stay tuned!