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The edge computing platform(s) (MEP) needs to be installed at the telco edge(s) and Application development/management related components (MECM (MEO+MEPM+Edge Connector), AppStore, Developer Platform) needs to be installed in Telco's cloud (private/public). Edge computing platform (MEP) provides a platform as a service environment for running "Enterprise Applications" In order to be useful, BP requires 5G RAN & UPF to enable connectivity & have configurations based on use case need. Also 5Gc and OSS system needs to be in place with desired configurations.

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Use Case

Diverse types of applications in various enterprise sectors, not limited to below:

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Architecture

Targeted architecture

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Center Node (Located at Telco Cloud)

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• aPaaS: Producer services for Enterprise applications to consume.
• PaaS: Platform services needed by enterprise application as well as platform components 
• MEP ServicesServer: 
  • DNS: DNS server and DNS record management service
  • Service Registry: Service registry and discovery, availability notifications
  • Traffic Rule Control: Performs traffic rule control
  Network Capabilities: Network capabilities like location, bandwidth for application to consume
  • MEP Services: A mobile edge service is a service provided and consumed either by the mobile edge platform or a mobile edge application like RNI, Location, Bandwidth
    
• Edge Gateway: Enable the traffic offloading from the aspects of data plane with local traffic routing, traffic management and so on

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EdgeGallery intends to comply with Application Enablement API as defined in ETSI MEC 011 https://www.etsi.org/deliver/etsi_gs/MEC/001_099/011/02.01.01_60/gs_mec011v020101p.pdf & present @ https://forge.etsi.org/rep/mec/gs011-app-enablement-api. 

Release 4 Architecture

EALTEdge BP will leverage other BP in same BP family "5G MEC/Slice System to Support Cloud Gaming, HD Video and Live Broadcasting Blueprint" for dynamic Traffic routing & steering. Kindly refer that BP for any related SDO references/compliance.

Release 4 Architecture

In this release, BP has been targeted to provide Orchestration In this release, BP has been targeted to provide Orchestration capability and application developer platform & store for easy & faster app development & onboarding, along with features like multi-tenancy, network-isolation, DNS, LB. Also have added ROBO retail enterprise specific capabilities along with sample application.

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Below is release 4 architecture for details kindly refer platform architecture section.

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Note:

1. For release 4, Kubernetes based Infra management is supported.
2. In release 4 to use BP, UPF (external entity to this BP) needs to be pre-configured with DNS redirection rules and traffic rules to ensure connectivity.

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The below diagram gives a overall architecture of the Enterprise Application on Lightweight 5G Telco Edge blueprint as given in Release 4. 

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Note: EALTEdge Blueprint Deployment has been tested on Cloud VM and is not tested on Bare-Metal Environment. Though, theoretically deployment should work in bare metal,  provided hardware and software prerequisites are met. Kindly refer R4 - Test Documentation of Enterprise Applications on Lightweight 5G Telco Edge (EALTEdge) to get details on the tested deployment.

CENTER Components

MECM:

• DashboardPortal: The dashboard provides user interface for the MECM services where edge nodes, APPLCM can be registered and apps can be distributed.
• Workflow / Policy: Provide policy to take action based on analytics like application relocation.
• Database: Open source PostgreSQL database is being used to store the information, Recommended version is 12.3.
• IAAS Adapter: Will retrieve the query MEP capabilities and KPI information from Prometheus and also upload config, remove config, instantiate, terminate,and query an application.
• Orchestrator: Provides application orchestration based on static/ dynamic host selection.
• Inventory: Maintains system level view of all Edges, including edge capabilities, deployed applications and their status etc.
  
• SchedulerHost Selection: Responsible for selection of host for deployment.
• CatalogPackage Manager:  Catalogue displays the details of on hosts and applicationsMaintains and manages application packages and is responsible of pushing images to edges. 
• Common DB: Persistent Database.

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• Portal: Portal provides the user interface to publish and launch App applications. and has option for user to comment on the application in comment section and give ratings.
• Appstore Services (App Distribution, App Experience): App Store services where uploading an App package and verifies the upload. Also provides features like comment/like for user experience sharing.
  
• PGDB Repository : Open source PostgreSQL database is being used to store the information, Recommended version is 12.3.

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• Tools: Developer tools are used in Plugin Management, Plugin Life Cycle and grading systems making it more convenient for developers to develop applications and integrate them into the edgegallery platform.
• Workspace: Developers manage their own Application development process by creating projects or migrating projects. Developers can manage project, app package and test task management.
• PG DB: PostgreSQL database version 12.2 is being used.
• Portal: Provides user interface for application developer to interact with developer platform.
• Sandbox: Test environment for application developers to test their applications.

EDGE Node Components:

MEP: 

• aPaaS:
  • Defect Detection Service: This is a service to detect the defect when PCB images provided
  • Object Detection Service: This service can be used by developer app for various Object detection for example Bottle detection and count for Retail store inventory.
• PaaS:
  • Secret Management: Platform services and developer apps can use this service for sensitive info storing like password, cert etc.
  • Cert Management: Platform services and developer apps can use this service for automate certifications management.
  • Storage: Edge native storage for enterprise sites.
  • Backup / Restore: scheduled backup, disaster recovery for remote sites
  • DB: common DB for applications data 
  • Monitoring: system and apps health monitoring. 
  • CNI: k8s based networking for multi interface support in a POD for SFC scenarios, network policies etc.
• MEP ServicesServer:
  • DNS: DNS server and DNS record management service
  • Service Registry: Service registry and discovery, availability notifications
  • AppLCM: applications life cycle management
  • Network Isolation:  Provides separation of control, management and data plan
• API Gateway: Provides secure End points for MEP services as well as producer Applications.

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The below image shows the software platform distribution and architecture for Release 4.0.

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EALTEdge Software Components 

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• aPaaS:
  • Defect Detection Service: This is a service to detect the defect when PCB images provided
  • Object Detection Service: This service can be used by developer app for various Object detection for example Bottle detection and count for Retail store inventory.
• PaaS:
  • Vault: Vault is a tool for securely accessing secrets. A secret is anything that you want to tightly control access to, such as API keys, passwords, certificates, and more. Vault provides a unified interface to any secret while providing tight access control and recording a detailed audit log.
  • Cert Management: cert-manager is a native Kubernetes certificate management controller. It can help with issuing certificates from a variety of sources, such as Let’s Encrypt, HashiCorp Vault, Venafi, a simple signing key pair, or self signed. It will ensure certificates are valid and up to date, and attempt to renew certificates at a configured time before expiry.
  • OpenEBS: OpenEBS is a Kubernetes native hyper converged storage solution. OpenEBS consumes the storage (disks, SSDs, cloud volumes, etc) available on the Kubernetes worker nodes to dynamically provision Kubernetes Persistent Volumes.

    OpenEBS can provision different type of Local PV for Stateful Workloads like Cassandra, MongoDB, Elastic, etc that are distributed in nature and have high availability built into them. Depending on the type of storage attached to your Kubernetes worker nodes, you can select from Dynamic Local PV - Hostpath, Device, ZFS or Rawfile.

  • Velero: Velero is an open source tool to safely backup and restore, perform disaster recovery, and migrate Kubernetes cluster resources and persistent volumes.
  • Influx DB: Time series data base for user applications data.
  • Prometheus Agent: cAdvisor, NodeExporter
  • Multus: Support secondary interfaces for PODs in case of SFC scenarios and CNFs
• MEP ServicesServer:
  • DNS:  The MEP platform provides the domain name resolution services to the applications deployed in the EdgeGallery MEC, which can be utilised by the device applications in UE. MEC platform receives the DNS configurations from the MEC management, which includes the FQDN (Fully Qualified Domain Name), IP address and related entries. MEC applications can later query or modify the state of these configurations.
  • MEP server: MEP platform services like service registry, discovery, DNS, traffic rules etc.  MEP provides service registration, update, delete, and query related API interfaces. Applications can register, update, delete, and query services through MEP.  The service registry provides visibility of the services available on the MEC server. It uses the concept of loose coupling of services, providing flexibility in application deployment. In addition, the service registry presents service availability (status of the service) together with the related interfaces and versions. It is used by applications to discover and locate the end-points for the services they require, and to publish their own service end-point for other applications to use. The access to the service registry is controlled (authenticated and authorised).
  • Network isolation: Provides separation of control, management and data plane
• AppLCM: LCM controller and K8s plugin.  Handles the application life cycle, where lcmController is mainly communicates with K8s plugin to upload config, remove config, instantiate, terminate,and query an application. It also provides APIs to query mep capabilities and kpi information from prometheus.
• KONG: Provides API gateway functionality along with authentication and authorisation.

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