Aarna.ml has recently released a new version of its open source orchestration platform, the Aarna.ml Multi Cluster Orchestration Platform (AMCOP) v3.2. This platform aims to solve management complexity for edgenative and 5G network services, providing orchestration, lifecycle management, and real-time policy, closed-loop automation capabilities. This blog post covers the new features, enhancements, and additions in this latest version of AMCOP.

I. New Feature Addition

One of the new features of AMCOP v3.2 is the startup config push from SMO (Service Management Orchestrator) to RAN (Radio Access Network) elements. This feature automatically pushes configuration to a new device when it connects for the first time. To use this feature, the desired startup config must be added to SMO via a REST API before connecting the device. SMO provides APIs to manage (add/view/delete) the desired configuration.

Another new feature is the cell setup/active/inactive capability. SMO will perform cell setup to DU (Distributed Unit) or cell active/inactive to CU (Central Unit) based on the synchronization-state change of the RU (Radio Unit).

AMCOP v3.2 also includes RU carrier activation, which performs active or inactive to all the carriers of the respective RU based on the cell status (in-service/out-of-service) netconf notification from CU/DU.

II. Additional Capabilities on Observability and Monitoring

AMCOP v3.2 has added new capabilities on observability and monitoring. It now includes ELK (Elasticsearch, Logstash, Kibana) integration, which provides centralized logging to identify problems with servers or applications. It allows you to search all the logs in a single place and helps to find issues in multiple servers by connecting logs during a specific time frame. To use this feature, you need to have a separate K8s cluster up and running to deploy the ELK stack.

AMCOP v3.2 also includes Prometheus and Grafana Orchestration, which enables telemetry service for target cluster monitoring. Prometheus federate (scrape approach) is used for target Kubernetes cluster and host server resource monitoring.

III. Addition of a new northbound interface (SOL-005)

AMCOP v3.2 now supports ETSI SOL005 Interface, which is related to network service management and VNF (Virtual Network Function) onboarding towards OSS/BSS (Operations Support System/Business Support System). SOL005 Interface fulfills the requirements defined in ETSI NFV IFA013.

IV. Greater Stability

AMCOP v3.2 has been stabilized for production readiness. Several fixes have been made to harden this version and make it ready for deployment in the production stage. The platform now has better fault management, alarm generation, failure handling, smooth migration, and service deletion.

In conclusion, the latest release of Aarna.ml Multi Cluster Orchestration Platform (AMCOP) v3.2 includes new features and enhancements that enable greater automation, observability, and stability for edge native and 5G network services. The addition of new capabilities on observability and monitoring, as well as the support for a new northbound interface, makes AMCOP v3.2 a more complete and robust platform for managing network services.

Learn more about ACMOP and request a free trial.

STL Partners published an interesting report a couple of weeks ago titled “Why is now the time to rethink edge orchestration?” I fully agree with the entire contents of the report and here is my take on why edge orchestration is different. Different from what, you might ask? Different from telco MANO (management and orchestration) and cloud orchestration. 

I think there are four key reasons why edge orchestration is different:

1. Scale: This is the most obvious reason. The scale of edge orchestration is orders of magnitude greater than traditional networks. It is not unusual to have tens of thousands of edge sites in the enterprise or telco context. Walmart announced 10K edge sites a couple of years ago. I was just talking to a senior executive at Telefonica, and he mentioned that there are 10K central offices and 20K baseband locations just in Spain. Orchestrating hundreds of network services or applications across tens of thousands of sites creates scale complexity.
2. Heterogeneity: I compare the cloud to a departmental store. It is provided by one company; it is consistent, coherent, and orderly. The edge is a bazaar. Just at a cloud edge such as Equinix, you have multiple compute providers (e.g. Equinix Metal, AWS Outposts, HPE Greenlake, Zenlayer), multiple storage providers (e.g. NTAP, Dell APEX, Seagate Lyve, Pure Storage), multiple CaaS providers (e.g. Red Hat OpenShift, AWS EKS Anywhere, Google Anthos), multiple network function providers (Cisco, Fortinet, Palo Alto), and multiple connectivity providers (e.g. Equinix Fabric, Megaport, TATA Communications). Orchestrating environments in a bazaar is much harder than in a departmental store. 
3. Dependencies: The whole mantra of the cloud has been to break the dependency between the workload and the underlying infrastructure. However, at the edge, this is impractical. Networking, machine learning, and AR/VR workloads have infrastructure dependencies. To further complicate matters, these applications also have network service dependencies such as Private 5G. In other words, at the edge, the infrastructure, applications, and network services all have to be orchestrated in a concerted fashion.
4. Dynamism: The edge is dynamic. At the fall 2022 GTC, Chris Lamb from NVidia presented the concept of a multiservice RAN where, like Batman, the RAN infrastructure changes its entire persona from day to night. During the day (or periods of high utilization), the edge runs a RAN workload. During the night (or periods of low utilization), the edge runs AI/ML workloads. There are many other examples and reasons for why the edge is more dynamic than the cloud.

This means that existing orchestration mechanisms don’t work in this new paradigm, and that there is a need for a new set of tools. Please contact us to discuss this topic in more depth.

The Aarna.ml Multi Cluster Orchestration Platform (AMCOP) is purpose built for edge orchestration. Learn more here. Free consultations and trials are available.

Aarna.ml, AvidThink, and FalconX Accelerator were thrilled to host a "Who's Who" of Edge, Cloud, and Networking executives and investors at the inaugural "Edge Computing Forum: What’s really working, and where" event on February 9th at the FalconX facility in Milpitas, CA. A big "Thank You" to all of our speakers! See the event photos, slides, and video at the links below.

• BV Jagadeesh, Co-Founder & Board Member, FalconX
• Roy Chua, Founder & Analyst, AvidThink
• Jim Brisimitzis, Founder & General Partner, 5G Open Innovation Lab
• Shah Rahman, Director of Engineering Meta
• Ronnie Vasishta, SVP Telecom, NVidia
• Ravi Puvvala, VP Strategic Partnerships, Harman Automotive
• Puneet Sethi, SVP, Product Management and Operations, Ataya
• Sanyogita Shamsunder, Head of Global Network Edge, Google Cloud Platform
• Ashish Yadav, Sr. Director Engineering & Head of Technical Product Marketing, Software Frameworks, Capgemini
• Edge networking: Kaladhar Voruganti, Field CTO, Equinix
• Edge storage: Gregory Touretsky, Sr. Director of Product Management, Seagate Lyve
• Edge security: Prakash Mana, CEO, Cloudbrink‍
• Amar Kapadia, Co-Founder & CEO, Aarna.ml
  

Great insights were shared and lively discussions were held on the state of edge computing today.

• View event photos here
• View the event slides here
• View the event recording here

Please send any questions to bwick@aarna.ml

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It's that time of the year again!

Building upon a successful ONE Summit and Developer and Testing Forum last November in Seattle, the Linux Foundation Networking (LFN) community is once again hosting a Developer & Testing Forum (D&TF). This will be a virtual event, running February 13-16, 8:00 AM - 1:00 PM EST. These events, are a great opportunity for the technical open source communities to clear away other distractions and focus on addressing development challenges and plot project roadmaps.

Aarna.ml has been a long time contributors to ONAP and EMCO projects and the 5G Super Blueprint Initiative. But the D&TF's scope is broader than LFN projects. LF Networking I am indeed! Aarna.ml will be giving 3 talks in the Nephio Track and one in the 5G Super Blueprint Track about potential Nephio integration.

Listed below are the sessions, times, and links:

Feb 14, 9:00 AM ET: 5G SBP: Birds of Feather: Is there value in adding Nephio? (Amar Kapadia)

Feb 15, 11:30 AM ET: Nephio: Infrastructure Automation (Sandeep Sharma)

Feb 15, 12:00 PM ET: Nephio: Configuration Management (Sandeep Sharma, Vivek Muthukrishnan)

Feb 15, 12:30 PM EST: Nephio: Birds of Feather Session: Leveraging EMCO Code to Accelerate Nephio (Amar Kapadia)

There is no cost to attend. We hope to see you there! Be sure to check back on the wiki where slides, notes, and videos will be added.

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The O-RAN Alliance has enabled an ecosystem of disaggregated, multi-vendor RAN solutions, creating new opportunities for the industry. But in order to function as an effective marketplace, interoperability among various stakeholders is required. This includes specification compliance, RAN component integration with backhaul 4G/5G Core networks, and the ability to deploy NFs across distributed networks using different models. As a result, an automated, ready-made test suite that can comprehensively validate and benchmark functional, conformance, and performance use cases is a "must have."

Rebaca Technologies ABot integrated with the Aarna.ml AMCOP SMO (Service Management and Orchestration) offers a comprehensive environment to emulate any O-RAN and 4G/5G network functions. The solution can trigger and verify different use cases. Each use case can be represented in a Domain Specific Language, which can describe the different scenarios. The representation of these use cases in a Domain Specific Language helps to generate the resultant test cases according to the 3GPP and O-RAN specifications. The solution also includes ABot Analytics which analyzes the test execution results to provide report generation, log/pcap analysis, KPI correlation, release maturity reports, and bug tracking. This represents a "zero touch" model for deployment and commissioning.

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Comprehensive O-RAN StackValidation allows users to customize a validation stack by mixing and matching components and quickly enables interoperability testing. Specifically, the solution comprises the following components:

1.      DU,CU, RIC simulators

2.     Open source O-RAN SMO

3.     RU simulator from O-RAN-SC

4.     Open source Kubernetes O-Cloud

5.     Comprehensive test suite for all the 3GPP and O-RAN interfaces

6.     Automated analysis of test execution data and report generation

This integration replicates a multi-vendor O-Cloud environment and executes test cases as specified in the O-RAN specifications.

Get the Solution Brief Here

Webinar

Learn more in this upcoming webinar: Streamline and Validate O-RAN Interoperability Testing on Tuesday, December 20th, at 8:00 AM Pacific Time. Aarna and Rebaca will present a comprehensive O-RAN stack validation solution for the industry – a cloud-based O-RAN validation solution using ABot & AMCOP. Attendees will learn how to overcome common O-RAN challenges, customize a validation stack by mixing and matching components, and begin interoperability testing today. Register Here.

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Linux Foundation Networking presented the One Summit 2022, in Seattle, WA, from November 15-16. The focus of the event was wireless networking and network automation advancements leveraging best-of-breed 5G network edge, and cloud native solutions. Aarna.ml leverages multiple open source projects from LF Networking (LFN) including ONAP, EMCO, and more. 

Program Highlights: The Slicing Must Go On: Leveraging Open Source to Securely Implement E2E Infrastructure, Slicing and Orchestration. Amar Kapadia of Aarna.ml and Hitendra Sonny Soni of Kaloom. In this presentation, they discussed the advantages of open source network slicing for helping deploy 5G connectivity and service tailoring without suffering the prohibitive financial strain of 5G integration and operation. Get the slides.

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Keynote Highlights: Aarna/LFN Case Studies with Capgemini Engineering (5G Networking Orchestration), Equinix (Infrastructure as code), and Tigo Guatemala (E2E Network Services Orchestration) were featured in the opening keynote. Get the case studies. Aarna’s participation and leadership around orchestration was highlighted in the keynote 5G Super Blueprint: E2E Architecture for the Future of Network Services. Get the presentation slides. Learn more in this Case Study with Capgemini Engineering: https://lnkd.in/dmrwNzwg.

Nephio Developer Summit: Amar and Brandon enjoyed spending an afternoon with this exciting and growing community. Learn more about the Summit. Get the Nephio Executive Brief. 

LFN Developer & Testing Summit: Amar gave two presentations in the ONAP track: ONAP in Production: Observability using EFK & Prometheus. Get the Slides and Video. ONAP In Production: Performance and HA considerations. Get the Slides and Video.

5G Open Operability Lab: A visit to the 5G Open Operability Lab in Bellevue was the perfect way to end the week. We look forward to future collaborations.