In this article, we are going to explain how to easily deploy Containerized Network Functions (CNFs) on Edge Clouds.

Introduction to CNFs

Containerised Network Function (CNF) refers to the encapsulation of network functions, such as 5G core, RAN, routing, firewalling, or load balancing. CNFs leverage containerisation technology, such as Docker or Kubernetes, to provide a lightweight, portable, and scalable way to deploy and manage network functions.CNFs play a crucial role in the context of Edge Cloud computing. Following are some benefits on CNFs:

• CNFs have a low footprint compared to virtual machines, making them suitable for deployment on resource-constrained edge devices.
• CNFs enable the isolation of network functions which allows multiple CNFs to run on the same physical infrastructure.
• A CNF can be replicated into multiple instances to allow easy scalability of the network functions to meet the growing demand of users.

Containerisation enhances portability, allowing CNFs to run consistently across different cloud environments. However, some clouds are very different from other cloud environments where a CNF can run on one cloud environment but not on the other. Even if it run, it may produce different results on different environments. Installation and deployments of CNFs also become different and difficult for each cloud environment. Following are some challenges with running a CNF on different edge cloud environments:

• Difference in underlying platforms: A CNF running on VMWare may need different configurations than a CNF running on Openstack.
• Orchestration platforms: Different edge cloud providers may use different container orchestration platforms (e.g., Kubernetes, Docker Swarm). Ensuring compatibility with multiple orchestration tools can be complex.
• Interoperability: Lack of standardised interfaces and interoperability standards across edge environments can complicate CNF deployments.

Introduction to Sylva Project

To deal with above challenges, several companies like Orange, Telefonica, Vodafone, Telecom Italia, Deutsche telecom, Ericsson and Nokia have come together and developed Sylva Project which provides reference implementation of cloud infrastructure layer for telecommunication and edge services. Sylva project provides standardised Kubernetes clusters for edge computing. However, there are few challenges in managing the Sylva provided Kubernetes cluster such as:

• Spinning up a new Kubernetes cluster on a edge location is complicated
• There are no associated tools for managing and monitoring of such Kubernetes clusters
• Lack of end-to-end orchestration and life cycle management platform is missing to deploy CNFs on such Kubernets clusters.
• There is a lack of day 2 management of CNFs deployed on such Kubernetes clusters.

Introduction to Cloudiamo Solution

Cloudiamo solution is composed of two products: MSactivator and Cloudclapp, which is an end-to-end orchestration and management platform that can easily remove the above challenges while deploying CNFs on edge Kubernetes clusters. In addition, it provides following features:

Multivendor and Multi-technology Support, SDN and NFV Integration, Cross-Domain Orchestration, CNF Life cycle management, Security and Compliance, Real-Time Monitoring and Analytics.

3 Step deployment of CNF on Edge Cloud

Deploy Sylva workload cluster through Cloudclapp

Using Ubiqube’s Cloudclapp blueprint designer, we just need to specify that we want to deploy a Sylva workload cluster on a Virtual Machine (VM) running on a edge location. Save it as a blueprint which further can be used to deploy more Sylva workload clusters. Once, the blueprint is saved, you can deploy this blueprint. After deployment is done, there are three clusters created on your virtual machine.The first one “cluster” is the Sylva workload cluster on which we will deploy the free5G core CNFs.

Establish connectivity with Cluster

Once the workload cluster is ready and running, a corresponding Managed Entity is created in MSactivator.You can also monitor its availability status.To deploy the CNF, MSActivator provides a workflow using which a suitable CNF can be selected from a CNF catalog and can be deployed on target.

Deploy CNF

Once, the workflow verify an active connection between MSActivator and Sylva Edge, you can trigger the “Deploy CNF” process. This will again open the workflow console where you can select the Free 5G Core CNFs to deploy. Clicking on Run button will show you the progress on Free 5g Core deployment on Sylva Edge location. At this moment, Free 5G Core CNFs are deployed on Sylva Edge location. MSActivator provides a GUI interface to verify if the CNFs are deploy or not.

Conclusion

We have seen that deploying the CNFs using MSActivator and Cloudclapp on a Sylva edge location was very simple and does not need any programming and scripting experience.Containerised network functions on the Edge Cloud offer a flexible, scalable, and efficient solution for deploying and managing network services in edge environments. Using Ubiqube’s Cloudiamo solution, it is very easy to deploy and manage CNFs on Edge clouds.