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The Akraino Edge Stack is a declarative configuration of solution components. The framework will allow multiple hardware and software SKUs to co-exist with complete CI/CD process. It will collection of multiple blueprints. Blueprints are declarative configuration of entire stack i.e., Cloud platform, API and Applications. Intend of Akraino Edge Stack is to support VM, container and bare metal workloads. The Software SKU will be a combination of upstream software and components hosted in Akraino. Common components will be used across the SKUs, for example, ONAP. The gating process will ensure that SKUs are accepted only after if it passes through the guidelines/approval process.Akraino is a complimentary OpenSource project and it is intend to use upstream community work in addition to the software development within the Akraino community.
A typical service provider will have thousands of Edge sites. These Edge sites will could be deployed at Cell tower sites , Central offices, and other service providers real estate such as wire centers. End-to-End Edge automation and Zero-Touch provisioning are required to minimize OPEX and meet the requirements for provisioning agility.
In the context of 5G, Edge Computing enables Operator and 3rd party services to be hosted close to the User Equipment's (UEs) access point of attachment, so as to achieve an efficient service delivery through the reduced end-to-end latency and load on the transport network. In 3GPP TS 23.501 there is a section addressing the architecture and requirements which is summarized below.
The 5G Core Network selects a User Plane Function (UPF) close to the UE and executes the traffic steering from the UPF to the local Data Network via an N6 interface. This may be based on the UE's subscription data, UE location, the information from Application Function (AF), policy or other related traffic rules. Due to a user or Application Function mobility, the service or session continuity may be required based on the requirements of the service on the 5G network. The 5G Core Network may expose network information and capabilities to an Edge Computing Application Function.
Depending on the operator deployment, certain Application Functions can be allowed to interact directly with the Control Plane Network Functions with which they need to interact, while the other Application Functions need to use the external exposure framework via the Network Exposure Function (NEF).
The functionality supporting for Edge Computing includes:
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The Akraino Edge Stack is intended to support any type of access methodologies such as Wireless (4G/LTE, 5G), Wireline, Wi-Fi, etc.,
In order to be resilient, Akraino Edge Stack deployment intent to follow hierarchy of deployments such as collection of central sites that deploys collection of regional sites. The regional sties that facilitates the deployment of Edge Sites. For example, the figure below shows central site C1 and C2 allows the management of regional
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Akraino sites hierarchy consists of Central sites that deploy Regional sites and Regional sites that deploy Edge sites. The figure below shows Central site C1 deploying Regional sites R1, R2, R3, and R4 and Central site C2 deploying Regional sites R5, R6, R7, and R8. Regional site R1 deploys Edge sites E11, E12 and other sites in the R1 "Edge Flock". Regional site R2 deploys edge sites E21, E22 and other sites in the R2 "Edge Flock" and so on. And regional sites allows the management of Edge Sites which are remote and closer to the users.
Regional sites serve as the controller for Edge sites in their corresponding "Edge Flock". For instance, R1 is the Regional Controller for Edge sites E11, E12, and others. R1 is responsible for Day 0 site deployment and Day 1/Day2 site operations and lifecycle management of E11, E12 and other sites in the "R1 Edge Flock". Similarly, R2 is the Regional Controller for Edge sites E21, E22, and others. R2 is responsible for Day 0 site deployment and Day1/Day 2 site operations and lifecycle management of E21, E22 and other sites in the "R2 Edge Flock" and so on.
To promote the high availability of Edge Cloud services, Akraino Regional Controller can failover to other Regional Controllers. For instance, R2 Regional Controller can back up Regional Controller R1 and Regional Controller R3 can back up R2 Regional Controller and so. To support this, the portal orchestration at each Regional Controller has visibility into all Edge sites in the hierarchy. Similarly, Central sites C1 and C2 that deploy Regional sites back each other and have visibility into all Regional sites in the hierarchy.regional sites are setup redundantly to overcome site failures.