VoIP in Agentic AI era
Once upon a time signaling stack is separated from voice as packet switched SS7 network, with its own protocol stack. SS7 over TCP/IP stack is SIGTRAN. VoIP signaling plane has protocols like H.323 (by ITU), SIP (by IETF) and MEGACO. SIP became most popular. VoIP data plane is RTP. Now in era of Agentic AI, we have business solutions for different verticals to integrate voice with STT, LLM, TTS etc. Here are few resource URLs
All Relevant technologies
https://www.voip-info.org/
https://telecom.altanai.com/
Signalwire
https://www.linkedin.com/posts/briankwest_github-signalwire-demosveronica-this-activity-7430982255675678720-jsTH/
https://developer.signalwire.com/sdks/agents-sdk/
https://github.com/signalwire-demos
https://signalwire.com/
https://postpromptviewer.signalwire.io/
FreeSWITCH
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FreeSWITCH
https://signalwire.com/freeswitch
https://github.com/signalwire/freeswitch
https://developer.signalwire.com/freeswitch/FreeSWITCH-Explained/
https://github.com/amigniter/mod_audio_stream
https://github.com/sptmru/freeswitch_mod_audio_stream
https://medium.com/@srivastava.vikash/day-9-real-time-voice-ai-starts-here-streaming-audio-from-freeswitch-a45d69547164
https://www.cyberpunk.tools/jekyll/update/2025/11/18/add-ai-voice-agent-to-freeswitch.html
Asterisk
https://www.asterisk.org/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asterisk_(PBX)
https://github.com/asterisk/asterisk
Plivo
https://www.plivo.com/
https://github.com/plivo
JsSIP
https://jssip.net/
https://github.com/versatica/JsSIP
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/JsSIP
Security
https://www.frafos.com/
OverSIP
https://oversip.versatica.com/
https://github.com/versatica/OverSIP
https://rubygems.org/gems/oversip/versions/2.0.1?locale=en
https://www.voip-info.org/oversip/
OfficeSIP
https://officesip-server.software.informer.com/
https://telecom.altanai.com/2014/10/13/sip-server-officesip/
https://sourceforge.net/projects/officesip/
https://github.com/vf1/sipserver
FlexiSIP
https://github.com/BelledonneCommunications/flexisip
https://www.linphone.org/en/flexisip-sip-server/
https://www.linhome.org/software-products/flexisip/
https://wiki.linphone.org/xwiki/wiki/public/view/Flexisip/
Tools
https://postpromptviewer.signalwire.io/
https://github.com/briankwest/libnemo_normalize
https://github.com/signalwire-demos/utils
https://github.com/xiph/rnnoise
FreePBX
https://www.hostinger.com/in/tutorials/freepbx-tutorial
https://www.freepbx.org/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FreePBX
https://github.com/freepbx
Others
https://medium.com/@dwilkie_34546/implementing-ai-powered-voice-at-somleng-a-technical-deep-dive-93edbb920e02
https://stringee.com/en/
https://www.kamailio.org/w/
https://github.com/resiprocate/resiprocate/wiki
https://www.kaplansoft.com/teksip/
AI
https://deepgram.com/
https://github.com/dograh-hq/dograh Voice AI agent
NVIDIA GTC25: Telecom Special Address
LTM Large Teleco Model : SoftBank is pioneer. Here is WhitePaper by GSMA https://www.gsma.com/get-involved/gsma-foundry/gsma_resources/white-paper-large-telecom-models/
Llama Nemotron Reasoning Model. Open source by NVIDIA on HF
https://www.nvidia.com/en-in/ai-data-science/foundation-models/nemotron/
https://arxiv.org/pdf/2505.00949
AI Factory is a specialized, integrated infrastructure designed to manage the entire AI lifecycle, from data ingestion to model training and deployment for real-time inference
AI Grid is a network of small, highly specialized AI communities. The members of AI Grid share their research work within these communities, initiate collaborations and establish fruitful connections for the future. https://lightning.ai/
Building Blocks of the NVIDIA AI Aerial Platform:
1. NVIDIA Aerial CUDA-Accelerated RAN
2. NVIDIA Aerial AI Radio Frameworks
3. NVIDIA Aerial Omniverse Digital Twin
Reference
CAMARA - NaaS
Keywords
- CAMARA APIs
- Open GW
- Network API
- NaaS
AI impacts API development
Usecase
1. anti fraud
2. location API : book cab for people not having smart phone
3. voice activated AI transaction. book a cab
4. geo fencing. warn people when other people comes close to them. logistic when truck reaches store, offloading
5. future Quality in demand
Challenges
1. monetizing
2. standardizing
3. presenting to non-telco audience
4. focus on right APIs: There are 15 fraud APIs, customer only wants to know is it fraud or not?
5. scale and coverage: approach operator and help them coming to eco system
6. data privacy and consent: no need for customer to provide consent for each new API. it is bad experience
7. education and certification about API. Let developer make new business models and business case.
8. telco shall listen to industry need. how to solve challenges using advance connectivity and APIs. demand side focus.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rg-TKpBuiPI
Popular APIs
- Messaging
- authentication
- Device location,
- QoS,
- fraud prevention,
- identity verification
- age verification
https://cpaasaa.com/post-mwc-aduna-vonage-and-the-future-of-network-apis/
Network API centralizes complexity and distribute simplicity
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4C9zrRNoxas
Vonage and Infobip : service aggregation
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jh8iUuNHFYw
Network APIs, allow operators to virtualize parts of their networks and provide tailored data and features to developers
Network API v/s Usecase
1. Verify Location: Navigation, geotagging and location-aware notifications, personalized marketing
2. Device Status: Optimize resource usage based on device health and network condition. Identify issue and proactive customer support
3. SIM Density: Ensure optimal user experience during peak hours, SON
4. SIM swap: Fraud Prevention
5. QoD
6. Device identification, device location, and phone number verification
7. Identity and consent management
8. OTP validation
https://www.vonage.com/resources/articles/what-is-a-network-api/
Vonage Network Registry
CSP can find who developer uses
Developer can decide which CSP to choose.
We are moving from Transactional world to conversational world.
https://camaraproject.org/resources/
Network Automation
Telecom Networks are complex due to multi layer, multi vendor
N/w Management -> SDN -> Intent Based Networking (programable and declarative) -> Cloud Native Networking
Earlier Monolithic NMS with FCAPS
Now : CICD, Microservice, K8s.
NSP (N/s Service Platform) is for IP and optical domain
It has API (OpenAPI Spec).
Model-driven mediation
Framework has orchestration
Contributed by Nokia: Kubenet, gNMIc, SDCIO
1. Unified Artifactory Manager Component
It uses Kubespray
UAM creates CRs. CRs are consumed by deployer. Deployer is short lived job.
2. Telemetry:
A: internal NSP components
B: External system
Four Core Principle
1. Model driven
2. Vendor & Mediation Agnostic
3. Horizontal scale
4. Resilent
Six Layers
6. Analytics and optimization layer
5. o/p / storage layer : Kafka
3.and 4 make it model driven
4. Normalization Layer
3. Mapping layer
2. Collector layer (SNMP, gNMI)
1. N/w layer
Architecture
UAM, Restconf GW
source : from network using SNMP, gNMI
Sink: influxDB, Prm, VErtica, Kafka, PostgreSQL, File
Source and Sink are connected using NATS. NATS also connected with multiple transform worker using transformer CR from UAM
gNMIc
1. single mode
2. CLI mode (auto complete option)
3. cluster mode (more replica. one is leader).
Kubenet and SDCIO
declarative model and event driven reconciliation. It is more n/w automation using K8s. Gitops principle.
Arch:
SDCIO Schema Driven Configuration.
IPAM etc are CRD to build abstract network configuration.
Config CR and ConfigSet CR, RunningConfig, UnmanagedConfig. It has different backend own etcd.
YANG by schema server.
==========================
BNG, CUPS specific implementation
Kubenet Nephio are solving same problem? May be overlap.
APIs for sink? customer provides sink.
Kubenet is automation. more than NMS
Slide 21: Cisco Prime
Service Continuity in 5G
There is no inter cluster redundancy by K8s. We need to use proprietary solution OR cloud.
In telecom a component is connected with multiple. E.g vCU with vDU, EMS, 5GC
Sync Driver
GRAF framework with AI, Management Data analytics function(MDAF), policy driven
A1 interface is better than MDAF. As MDAF is at core network. it will add latency.
Nephio : open source project : LF + Google
Automate LCM of cloud infra and NF. Intent based declarative approach
LinkedIN : saurabhswaraj
GitOps based approach
1. N/w driver is GR aware
2. DB drive sync 2 MySQL
YAML PV and DB table synch
Each cluster has GRAPH controller
We can have several other use cases also
GRAPH is framework. We can develop our own driver.
GRAPH f/w = Redundancy Manager at Orchestrator + GRAPH controller at each cluster
Based on CRD, different driver will be deployed at each K8s cluster.
Still GRAPH is not open source. It is in process for open source. At present it is in R&D stage.
GRAPH can work with many orchestrator including Nephio
All DB has Replication Manager. Why do we need DB drive? DB drive is not novelty. Our novelty is framework.
Policy based, when failed comes up again, what will happen.
5G Standards Development Update in 3GPP – Release 17 and 18
R17: Enhanced support for broadband & vertical use cases
R18: Advance technologies & applications, e.g. AI/ML, XR, high fy bands
R19: New vertical users, applications, deployment models, spectrum.
================================
1. Service and system aspects
- SA1: Service Requirements
- SA2: System Architecture
- SA3: Security
- SA4: Codecs and Media Handling
- SA5: Telecom Management
- SA6: APIs and Applications
2. CT = Core Network and Terminals
- CT1: Radio Application Protocols
- CT3: External Networking
- CT4: Core Network Protocols
- CT6: Smart Card Applications
3. RAN: Radio Access Network
- RAN1: Radio L1
- RAN2: Radio L2& L3
- RAN3: Radio N/w Interface
- RAN4: Radio Performance Aspects
- RAN5: Mobile Conformance Testing
================================
SA1 R17 (Service Requirements)
Majority of Work Area
- eCAV: Enhanced Cyber-Physical Control ( industrial / factory vertical)
- AVPROD: AV Service PRODuction ( A/V production vertical)
- ATRAC: Asset TRACking ( warehouse vertical)
- CMED: Critical MEDical applications ( medical vertical)
- EAV: UAV Enhancement ( drone vertical)
- 5GSAT: Satellites uses in 5G ( satellite vertical)
- REFEC: Enhanced Relays for coverage and energy efficiency ( various verticals)
- MUSIM: support for Multiple USIMs per UE
- NCIS: Network Controlled Interactive Service
Ref: TR 21.917 R17
SA1 R18 (Service Requirements)
Work Areas for Vertical Markets
- 5GSTAB: Satellite Backhaul ( satellite vertical)
- SVCS: Satellite Access for Video Surveillance ( satellite vertical)
- EXPOSE: Service Exposure for Verticals ( various verticals)
- LPHAP: Low Power High Accuracy Positioning ( industrial / factory vertical)
- SEI: Smart Energy & Infrastructure ( power grid vertical)
- 5TRS: Timing Resiliency Service ( various verticals)
R17 was for specific verticals. R18 was not for specific verticals except satellite and power grid like
- PIN/Pirates - Personal IoT Networks
- Resident/Pirates - Residential 5G Networks
- Ranging - UE Ranging Service and sidelink positioning
- AMMT - AI/ML model transfer (Network - UE)
- EASNAS - Enhancement to network slicing
- eMMTEL - IMS Evolution
- TACMM - UE tactile & multi-modal communication (gaming, robotic control)
- VMR - Vehicle Mounted Relays
- PALS: Access to Localized Network Service
- SFChain: Service Function Chaining
SA2 R15 (System Architecture)
Baseline NR functionality for eMBB & URLLC
SA2 R16 (System Architecture) 5G phase 2
SA2 R17 (System Architecture)
Expand market reach of 5G: Satellite, IoT, Public Safety and MCS (Mission Critical Services), Edge Computing & Interactive Cloud Services, UAS (unmanned Aerial Systems),
Addtional Req of mobile operators and verticals: Enhancement, Performance & effeiciency improvement, targeting industrial, V2X, mMTC, eMBB, N/w slicing and IAB ( Integrated Access Backhaul)
Edge Networking
- Since R15.uplink classifier or branching point
- 3 connectivity models
1. distributed anchor point
2. session breakout
3. multiple PDU session
- discovery of edge application server
- N/w info. provisioning to local applications with low latency. E,g, N/w congestion,
- Seamless edge relocation
- 3GPP application layer architecture support
- DNAI based (I-)SMF selection
By SA2 and SA6 both. Complementary solution.
SNPN (Standalone Non-Public Network)
R17:
- New Functions
- Credential Holder
- NSS-AAF (Network Slice Specific Authentication and Authorization Function. )
- UE onboarding & provisioning
- IMS voice
- Emergency Service
- Integration of IEEE TSN.
- Time Sensitive Communication Services
- Only DL Time Synchronization
- Time Synchronization
- Time Sensitive Communication for any application
- UL Time Synchronization also. TSN grandmaster clock can be at device also
- etc.
- N/W Automation and Data analytics by NWDAF
- NWDAF = AnLF (Analytics Logical Function) + MTLF (Model Training Logical Functoin)
- Distributed NWDAF
- Data collection coordination and delivery
- Supporting MA PDU with 3GPP access leg over EPC and Non-3GPP access leg over 5GC
- LRF: Location Retrieval Function
- GMLC: Gateway Mobile Location Center
PCRF
* LTE PCC = PCRF (PDP Policy Decision Point) + PCEF + OCS + OFCS
* 4G PCRF = 3G PDF + 3G CRF
- allow/reject media req
- new / existing pdp context for media
- check against max allowed resource allocation
- lower BW for heavy-bw apps, during peak hours
Policies
- QoS
- BW Control
- Subscriber-aware
- Application gating
CRF
- charging rules: based on: Customer Service Level Agreement, time of day, n/w condition, volume of usage of high BW application, QoS gurantees, roaming status.
PCRF
(1) service flow detection
(2) Policy enforcement - PDF
(3) flow based charging - CRF
- real time management of (1) n/w and (2) subscribe policy
- route and prioritize n/w traffic.
- subscriber context = device + network + location + billing data
- input for revenue assurance +
- bw management: real time appropriate bw allocation to each service
- charging rules
In PCRF:
Memory = Subscriber DB
DSC (Diameter Signalling Controller) = nervous system
Brain = policy
Interfaces
Gx: PCEF (P-GW)
Gxx: BBERF (S-GW)
Rx: AS
Sp: SPR
Sd: TDF Traffic Detection Function
Sy: OCS
Gz: PCEF - OFCS
Gy: PCEF - OCS
Ud: UDR User Data Repository
Ref:
SPIFEE & SPIRE
SPIFEE standard is all about
- How to encode SPIFEE ID into X.509 certificate
- Which field to use
- How to validate (1) X.509 certificate and (2) JWT token, when SPIFEE ID is inside.
SPIFEE is for universal ID. SPIFEE is for how different components can trust each other in distributed system. SPIFEE was launched in KubeCon 2017. SPIFEE Federation API was main focus during 2018, 2019.
SPIRE
SPIRE is open source project, that implements SPIFEE standards.
1. It expose workload API
2. It is framework to manage issue of ID.
3. It is for 'secure introduction' = 'credential zero' ='bootstrap credential' Workload authenticate itself with SPIRE agent and agent with server.
4. trust bootstrapping
SPIRE is stand alone. It has many custom plugins
SPIRE server
- Identity Mapping / Identity Registry. It exposes Registration API
- Node API using Node Attestation plugin + Node Resolver plugin
- Federation API
- SVID Issuance (SPIFFE Verifiable Identity Document)
- signing key
- registry of workloads
It can have plugins like
1. Upstream CA plugin
2. Node Attestor plugin to validate node. Both SIRE agent and SPIRE server
3. Node Resolver plugin
4. Datastore plugin MySQL, SQLite 3 (default), or PostgresSQL
5. Key Manager plugin. To store private key to sign SVIDs (X.509 and JWT both)
It can be deployed as stateful set. It can have PV. In production environment, it can use DB: Pstgres or MySQL
SPIRE Agent
SPIRE Agent assign SPIFEE ID to workload and generates CSR to SPIRE server. The SPIRE server returns SPIFEE ID and trust bundle (a set of certificates to verify X.509-SVID OR public key to verify JWT). They gets transfer from SPIRE server to Node agent to workload. The private key of workload, never leave node.
- Workload API
- Workload Attestation : Verify authenticity of caller. only SPIRE agent
It can have plugins like
1. Multiple Workload attestor plugins
1.a Unix attestor (OS attestor). It use out-of-band Linux kernel to verify selector mentioned in request are genuine or not.
1.b K8s attestor. It communicate with kubelet. Verify it is genuine K8s workload. then ns, sa, docker image id etc.
2. Node attestor plugin. It used bootstrap configuration. Server responds with SVID to agent. Also SPIFEE ID of node. It becomes parent ID for workload.
3. key manager plugin. Generate and use private keys for X.509-SVID
It can be deployed as daemon set
Valid Node ID
1. cloud platform e.g. AWS Instance Identification Document IID, Azure Managed Service Identities, GCE Instance Identity Tokens
2. Private key stored at TPM = Trusted Platform Module or HSM = Hardware Security Module
3. manual verification through a joint token
4. SA token
5. etc.
SVID (SPIFFE Verifiable Identity Document) has two format
1. X.509 certificate
2. JWT token
- it is susceptible to replay attacks
- Use it when L7 proxy of L7 LB is on path.
SPIRE supports a specific form of JWT that is specifically designed to encode SPIFFE IDs, the JWT-SVID.
(1) ns = namespace
(2) sa = service account
(3) docker image id
- Parent ID can be K8s cluster name
- SPIFEE ID: Format spiffe://trust domain/workload
- DNS Name: OR CN:
- TTL:
- Entry ID:
Usecases
1. DB Access
2. Access to cloud provider
3. identity translation,
4. OAuth client authentication,
5. mTLS "encryption everywhere" and
6. workload observability.
7. Square talks about how Square uses SPIFFE and SPIRE to secure communications across hybrid infrastructure services: https://youtu.be/H5IlmYmEDKk?t=2585
8. Uber talks about integrating SPIRE with workload schedulers: https://youtu.be/H5IlmYmEDKk?t=4703
9. Tigera demonstrates how Calico, Envoy and SPIRE are used to deliver unified Layer 4 and Layer 7 authorization policies: https://youtu.be/H5IlmYmEDKk?t=7812
10. Bloomberg talks about TPM node attestation with SPIRE: https://youtu.be/30S0sKRxzjM
11. NGINX/F5 on how NGINX service mesh leverages SPIFFE and SPIRE https://youtu.be/plRkDK5xFpM
Other tools
1. Secret Stores
1.1 Hashicorp Vault
1.2 Square Keywhiz
2. Identity Provider
2.1 ory.sh
2.2 VMWare Lightwave
2.3 WS02 Identity Serve
3. Authorization Policy Engines
3.1 Open Policy Agent
4. Service Mesh
In case of Istio: "Istio Node Agent" is "SPIRE Agent". The "SPIRE server" can have "Istio Node Attestor Plugin"
Reference:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5m6kjzdysBI
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ikmxZdZRTio
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0LSaNrOabH4
https://www.thoughtworks.com/radar/platforms/spiffe
https://github.com/spiffe/spire/blob/master/ADOPTERS.md
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OHiPsqT1gcI
OSN Days 2019
- Hyperledger Telecom Special Interest Group (TCSIG) has released many white papers about usage of blockchain in telecom. https://wiki.hyperledger.org/display/TCSIG/Telecom+SIG+Reading+List
- Linux Foundation Edge is focusing on various verticals by diverse set of projects: https://www.lfedge.org/projects/
- O-RAN Software Community (SC) The first two release cover plumbing of different components. Subsequent releases will focus more on end to end cases.
- Linux Foundation has Acumos project to develop AI apps. It is a platform and open source framework.
- eBPF is promising technology. The speaker claimed, its performance is as good as DPDK. With DPDK, your code need to process all packets. With eBPF, you just check and if packet is irrelevant, you can pass it back to Linux Kernel to process it. Here are important github repo Click Here Click Here
- An introductory session on OVP (OPNFV Versification Program) certification. OVP verifies (1) VNF and (2) Infrastructure for VNF. It is an initiative to help operators. OVP certifies (1) compliance (2) validation and (3) performance.
- At present, ONAP is mainly for VNF. There is only one sample CNF is available to run on ONAP.
- ONAP's Dublin release has initial user cases for 5G. ONAP's Frankfurt release will have features for 5G end-to-end network slicing.
- ONAP has two components: (1) Design framework generates VNFD, NSD (2) Run-time framework is about monitoring and service assurance. K8s and ONAP can have slight overlap of functionality. E.g. Horizontal scaler of K8s
- The ONAP Orange OpenLab can be accessed by any ONAP contributor for hands-on with ONAP.
- One need to adjust BIOS settings, CPU clock, NIC card driver option, OS parameters etc to get maximum throughput.
- The counters for Bytes transmit/receive was resetting in just 3 miniutes.
- The PCIe was also bottleneck, to achieve 100 Gbps throughput.
- Here are important tools/utility/command for throughput measurement and optimisation:
- Traffic Control module of Linux Kernel.
- TRex Traffic Generator
- Testpmd
- 3GPP TS 23.502, ETSI and GSMA defines network slicing.
- NEST is Network Slicing Task Force.
- 5G network slicing characteristics (1) End to end in nature, (2) Dynamic or runtime connections (3) Multi Domain (4) Shared Resources.
- 5G network slicing has three functions (1) Communication Service function is associated with BSS domain (2) Network slice management function (3) Network slice subnet management function.
- SDC (Service Design and Creation) of ONAP defines network slice template, network slice subnet template etc.
- NSI (Network Slice Instance) and ONAP service has one to one mapping.
- Orange has contributed with Service Resolver Click Here Click Here
- Service chaining in K8s
- Tungsten Fabric and Akraino based network edges
- Four modes of Tungsten Fabric.
- MSO API in ONAP
- Tungsten Fabric and NSM
- Tungsten Fabric can configure any router that supports BGP
- There
are plenty of open source projects for telecom. Mobile operators are willing
to go for the one which are “popular”. The “popular” can be the one which
are used by most of their competitors.
- Now, the traditional marketing people have less role to influence the customer in Telecom world. If a company has more participation and contribution to
open source projects then it results in more influence in purchasing
decision of customer. It results in more business. The engineers from R&D team participates and contribute to open source projects.
- Tech Mahindra and Business Finland Sign MoU for Research and Development in 5G and 6G
- O-RAN Software Community (SC) has delivered its first release, just few weeks back.
- NSMCon 2019 was event about Network Service Mesh
- There is an event "Open Networking and Edge Summit", scheduled by Linux Foundation in April 2020 https://events.linuxfoundation.org/open-networking-edge-summit-north-america/
- Kubernetes Forum Bengaluru on 17th Feb https://events.linuxfoundation.org/kubernetes-forum-bengaluru/
Alternatives of tcpdump
- Ngrep
is best, for capture only those packets, whose payload has certain
pattern.
- Packetbeat is
lightweight open source packet analyzer. It sends data to Elastic Search
OR Logstash. It is not inline to datapath. So no impact on latency. It
consumes high CPU. Packetbeat can run as sidecar Docker container: https://www.elastic.co/guide/en/beats/packetbeat/current/running-on-docker.html
- Tranalyzer
is Lightweight open-source flow generator and packet analyzer for
practitioners and researchers
- Justniffer
is like tcpdump. Tcpdump is for TCP, while Justniffer for HTTP. Useful to
debug webserver.
5. Moloch is a large scale, open source, indexed packet capture and search system.
Service Function Chaining
- sFlow RFC 3176
- Cisco's NetFlow
- IPFIX Protocol RFC 7011
Cloud native technologies include
- containers,
- service meshes,
- microservices,
- immutable infrastructure and
- declarative APIs
that allow deployment in public, private and hybrid cloud environments through loosely coupled and automated systems
Various planes
- infrastructure plane,
- virtual infrastructure plane,
- service plane,
- user plane,
Then service function forwarders (SFFs) will create the service function paths (SFPs) in the form of an overlay by forwarding packets based on their NSH header.
The NSH header is composed of
- service path identification,
- transport independent per-packet service metadata and
- optional variable type-length-value (TLV) metadata.
physical probe or virtual probe functionality deployed as
- switches,
- classifiers,
- SFs, or
- SFFs.
The term probe to designate any network node capable of reading and writing to a NSH header
Middleboxes are also interchangeably called
- services,
- inline services,
- appliances,
- network functions (NFs),
- virtual NFs
- (vNFs), or
- service functions (SFs)
Example SFs includes
- firewalls,
- content filters,
- virus scanners (VS),
- intrusion detection systems (IDS),
- deep packet inspection (DPI),
- network address translation (NAT),
- content caches,
- load-balancers,
- wide area network (WAN) accelerators,
- multimedia transcoders,
- multiservice proxies,
- application acceleration,
- Lawful Intercept (LI),
- HTTP header enrichment functions
- TCP Optimizer
- logging/metering/charging/advanced charging applications,
- or any other function that requires processing of packets
ETSI NFV uses the term "network function forwarding graph" (NF-FG)
IETF uses the term "service function chaining" (SFC)
Fundamentally SFC is the ability to cause network packet flows to route through a network via a path other than the one that would be chosen by routing table lookups on the packet’s destination IP address.
VNF Forwarding Graph (VNFFG)
The combination of
- VNFs,
- SFC, and
- the classification of traffic to flow through them
is described as the VNF Forwarding Graph (VNFFG).
It is described as YAML file as per TOSCA VNF Forwarding Graph Descriptor (VNFFGD). VNFFGD = Forwarding Path + VNFGG
NSD = VNFFGD + VNFD
Each node is really a logical port, which is defined in the path as a Connection Point (CP) belonging to a specific VNFD.
Tacker = OpenStack service addressing uses cases of
- NFV Orchestration and
- VNF Infrastructure Manager VIM ( Nova, Neutron, Cinder)
using standards based architecture
NFVO Renders VNF Forwarding Graphs using SDN Controller or a SFC API
Tacker allows for managing VNFs
Example CLI calls:
To create VNFFG
openstack vnf descriptor create --vnfd-file tosca-vnffg-vnfd1.yaml VNFD1
openstack vnf create --vnfd-name VNFD1 VNF1
openstack vnf descriptor create --vnfd-file tosca-vnffg-vnfd2.yaml VNFD2
openstack vnf create --vnfd-name VNFD2 VNF2
To create VNFFG SFC (where testVNF1, and testVNF2 are VNF instances):
tacker vnffg-create –name mychain –chain testVNF2,testVNF1 –symmetrical True
To create VNFFG SFC by abstract VNF types (ex. “firewall”, “nat”):
tacker vnffg-create –name mychain –chain firewall,nat –abstract-types
To create SFC Classifier for a VNFFG:
tacker vnffg-classifier-create –name myclass –chain mychain –match tcp_dest=80,ip_proto=6
vnffg, vnffg_classifier are schema. Can be represented as dictionary.
For classifier, one can use tenant_id attribute to implement
- Service function chaining (sfc) architecture RFC 7665,
- Network service header http://www.ietf.org/internet-drafts/draft-ietf-sfc-nsh-01.txt
OpenStack meetup
Shashi Singh from Altiostar Networks discussed about EPA (Enhanced Platform Awareness).
EPA is about about making aware NFVO, VNFM and VIM, that specialized hardware is available below virtualization layer. E.g. High I/O throughput, high performance CPU, GPU, crupto accelerators and many more as below slides:
Shashi explained nicely NFV MANO architecture to build the context and introducing the acronmys. Telco NFVI providers are: RedHat, WindRiver, VMWare, Mirantis etc. VNFM is categorized as specific VNFM and Generic VNFM. It supports three interfaces: Ve-Vnfm-vnf, Vi-Vnfm and Or-Vnfm.
He explained how EPA can eliminate the need of passing through virtualization layer for data packet, if the required VNFs are running at same CPU socket. I confirmed my understanding that, one example of EPA is let all VNFs for user-plane data having single CPU afinity. We also discussed about SR-IOV single root input/output virtualization, cpu pinning, threading policy etc. Sometimes within storage node, one can leaverage use of SR-IOV, DPDK etc to support more I/O. TOSCA standard defines combination of NS-D (Network Service Descriptor) and VNFD (VNF Descriptor). Shashi also mentioend about Queens Release, Cyborg framework, nova, ironic etc.
Here is list of Intel technologies for EPA
1. Intel Advance Encryption Standard - New Instructions (Intel AES-NI)
2. Intel Advance Vector Extensions (AVE) and AVE2
3. Intel Quick Sync Video Technology
4. Intel QuickAssist Technology for encryption / decryption and compression / decompression
5. Intel Trusted Execution Technology (TXT)
6. Intel Node Manager : Server Mangement at Data Center
7. Data Plane Development Kit (DPDK) at Xenon processor
8. SR-IOV
9. Intel Xeon Phi Co-processor: for PCI
I came to know about this website https://www.telecomtv.com/ During tea-break, someone commented, that Kubernetes is now open source, but it is very old. Google is working on new technology / product named by Omega that is yet to be open sourced.
Palaniswamy from Tech M, explains about ManageIQ (with demostration) as Multi Cloud Management Platform. ManageIQ supports public clouds like : Amazon Web Services, Microsoft Azure, Google Cloud Platform; OpenStack based private clouds; containers like Kubernetes, OpenShift Origin etc. ManageIQ internally uses PostgreSQL DB. Ansible Tower is used for configuration and automation.
Sukant J R and Manoranjan Sahoo from Ericsson presented about CI/CD for containerized openstack development based on Helm.
We also discussed about 4 types of people in IT industry always remains. (1) Developers (2) Support engineers (3) Integrators and (4) Testers. The new technology comes and goes. One needs to work, as per his/her core strength.
Apart from that, Uday T.Kumar from Ericsson shared some insights about OpenStack Summit and how to contribute to OpenStack community. He also acknowledged that Bangalore OpenStack community is very active and sharing the latest updates. Later on those updates are known to entire world at OpenStack summit.
Disclaimer: I captured this notes, as per my understanding on best effor basis. So it may not accurately refelct the spearker's view. Any corrections are welcome.
Reference:
https://www.meetup.com/Indian-OpenStack-User-Group/events/249891291/
https://01.org/sites/default/files/page/openstack-epa_wp_fin.pdf
https://networkbuilders.intel.com/network-technologies/enhancedplatformawareness
5G NR : Part 1
Use Cases
- AR/VR
- Autonomous transportation (car)
- Reliable access to remote health-care
- Public safety
- Smarter Agriculture
- Efficient use of energy/utilities
- Autonomous manufacturing
- Sustainable cities and infrastructure
- Digitized logistics and retails
Market Segments
1. Enhanced Mobile Broadband (eMBB)
2. Massive Machine Type Communications (eMTC)
3. Ultra Reliable and Low Latency Communications (URLLC)
Key KPIs
1. Peak data rate
2. Spectrum efficiency
3. Mobility
4. Latency
5. Connection diversity
6. Network energy efficiency
7. Area traffic capacity
5G standard bodies
1. 3GPP (ITU-R) : (IMT 2020)
2. EU - (METIS - 2020)
3.1 Japan 2020 and beyond
3.2 Korea 5G Forum
3.3 MOST - China
5G Evolution
1. IMT-Advanced
2. Enhanced IMT-Advanced
3. 5G RAN
Peak data rate
Mobility
Capacity (/km square)
Number of connected devices / cell
User plane latency
Energy Saving (energy / bit)
5G Standards
pre 5G standard - https://m.corp.kt.com/eng/html/biz/services/sig.html
3GPP Important Standards
TS 38.211 NR; Physical channels and modulation
TS 38.212 NR; Multiplexing and channel coding
TS 38.213 NR; Physical layer procedures for control
TS 38.214 NR; Physical layer procedures for data
TS 38.215 NR; Physical layer measurements
TS 38.300 NR; Overall description; Stage-2
TS 38.321 NR; Medium Access Control (MAC) protocol specification
TS 38.322 NR; Radio Link Control (RLC) protocol specification
TS 38.323 NR; Packet Data Convergence Protocol (PDCP) specification
TS 38.331 NR; Radio Resource Control (RRC); Protocol specification
TR 38.801 Study on new radio access technology: Radio access architecture and interfaces
TR 38.912 Study on new radio access technology
TR 38.913 Study on scenarios and requirements for next generation access technologies
TS 23.501 System Architecture for the 5G System
NSA
gNB to EPC
SA
gNB to 5G CN
For greenfield deployment
4G and 5G comparison
U-Plane
New protocol SDAP over existing PDCP
Deployment Models
Reference : TR 38.913 Study on scenarios and requirements for next generation access technologies
mmWave frequency is > 30 GHz
5G New Technology
1. mmWave frequency is > 30 GHz
2. Massive MIMO > 8 x 8 MIMO
3. Beam Management
4. LDPC coding (for U-Plane) and Polar coding (for C-Plane)
5. AS Layer
6. UL Waveform
7. Subframe structure
8. HARQ
9. SDN
10. NFV
11. Grant-free UL for IoT
Numerologies
1 frame = 10 subframe
1 subframe's slot = f (n)
1 slot = 14 symbols
So 1 frame's slot = 10 x f(n)
So 1 subframe's symbols = 14 x f(n)
So 1 frame's symbol = 10 x 14 x f(n) = 140 x f(n)
Slot Format
TDD or FDD depends upon
0 : All 14 Symbols are D
1 : All 14 Symbols are U
2 : X
3 : 13 D + 1 X
4: 12 D + 2 X
5 : 11 D + 3 X
D = Downlink
U = Uplink
X = Flexible
To be continued...
