That is Half III of a three-blog sequence on options to beat challenges related to bridging the digital divide.
In half I of this sequence, we mentioned conventional broadband community architectures and their limitations. In half II, we mentioned particulars on the evolution of broadband networks, utilizing a distributed structure with a centralized management aircraft, designed to deal with the challenges related to conventional broadband networks. On this remaining weblog, we are going to concentrate on the Cisco answer with Subscriber Edge.
Cisco Subscriber Edge answer
The Management and Consumer Aircraft Separation Broadband Community Gateway (CUPS BNG) answer from Cisco terminates residential broadband subscribers, is aligned with TR-459, and known as Cisco Subscriber Edge or cloud-native BNG (cnBNG), as a result of cloud-native expertise is used to host management aircraft features.
Given the vital want for resiliency within the management aircraft, which is tasked with terminating thousands and thousands of subscriber periods over lots of of distributed person planes, Cisco’s subscriber edge management aircraft has been developed as a cloud-native software from the bottom up utilizing Go programming language to make sure superior reliability.
As a part of the evolution to cloud-native community features, the Cisco Subscriber Edge management aircraft structure is decomposed into a number of microservices and deployed as containers that may be independently scaled, upgraded, and deployed based on necessities (see Determine 1 on cloud-native tenets used for the management aircraft structure).
The decomposition of management features into a number of unbiased stateless microservices permits higher resiliency. It additionally permits hitless improve of the management aircraft, unbiased patching of drawback or failed containers, and restricted rollout of options or software program modifications with no widespread purposeful impression. These microservices are deployed utilizing the identical infrastructure as Extremely 5G Packet Core, which hosts the 5G Packet Core Features as containers, and might be simply prolonged to run on third-party container-as-a-service (CaaS) platforms.
Cisco Subscriber Edge structure
Cisco Subscriber Edge structure (see Determine 2) is aligned with Broadband Discussion board TR-459 . On this structure, the management aircraft is cloud-native with decisions of {hardware} and software program person planes primarily based on the IOS XR community working system (NOS).
The Cisco Subscriber Edge structure supplies quite a few technical benefits and advantages, positioning CSPs to successfully broaden their networks in alignment with the altering calls for of the market. These benefits are distinctive to the Cisco structure and complement the advantages already inherent within the CUPS framework. The extra advantages embrace:
- Operational ease: Cisco’s management aircraft structure consists of an Ops Middle operate, which makes BNG operations extra user-friendly for BNG community engineers and lowering the necessity to handle Kubernetes straight. For added effectivity, Cisco Crosswork Community Automation presents automation for deployment, lifecycle administration, and repair orchestration, whereas additionally sustaining service assurance.
- Trade-leading scale: On the coronary heart of Cisco Subscriber Edge is a cloud-native management aircraft, designed for enormous industry-leading scale, supporting a community of 1 million periods with lots of of person planes. Increasing capability is simplified by including additional computing sources or new nodes, guaranteeing a clean scale-up course of that retains current subscriber periods on-line with none impression.
- Resiliency: Cisco’s structure makes use of a layered strategy for resilience that ensures the management aircraft is protected against server to knowledge heart failures in a cloud-native surroundings. The person aircraft safety is ensured by subscriber redundancy group (SRG) characteristic assist, which mitigates dangers from hyperlink and platform failures to total web site outages.
- Simplified BNG Monitoring: With Cisco Subscriber Edge, the duty of monitoring BNG key efficiency indicators (KPIs) is simplified by way of an included Grafana Dashboard, putting off advanced monitoring setups and further licensing prices. This intuitive dashboard showcases an in depth collection of metrics that operation groups can customise, simplifying the monitoring expertise considerably. Furthermore, Cisco Subscriber Edge ensures clean integration with third-party dashboards, by way of telemetry and bulk statistics.
- Simpler integration: Cisco Subscriber Edge structure is aligned to TR-459 customary, which makes use of the CUPS mannequin to scale back OSS/BSS touchpoints with the management aircraft, thereby facilitating smoother integration. Constructed on a basis of cloud-native expertise and a microservices framework, the management aircraft ensures fast deployment of recent options, streamlining the combination course of for enhanced effectivity.
Bridge to common broadband
The Cisco Subscriber Edge answer, aligned to Broadband Discussion board TR-459 customary, marks a big development in broadband community gateway expertise. With the cloud-native management aircraft, CSPs can effectively handle the calls for of thousands and thousands of subscriber periods throughout an enormous array of distributed person planes deployed at completely different layers within the community.
The Cisco answer might help CSPs adapt to evolving broadband and visitors necessities, develop their networks successfully, and leverage distinctive answer benefits which counterpoint advantages inherent within the CUPS framework.
For BNG engineers, the Cisco structure simplifies operations and will increase effectivity by way of the Ops Middle operate and Cisco Crosswork automation capabilities.
Community operators can profit from a fortified answer utilizing a layered structure that protects each the management aircraft and person aircraft from varied malfunctions and outages, together with web site failures and knowledge heart outages. Different operational advantages embrace simpler integration with standards-based alignment, and simplified monitoring of key BNG efficiency indicators utilizing the embedded Grafana dashboard for a customizable and complete view of efficiency metrics with out additional prices.
Cisco’s dedication to innovation and the cloud-native strategy empowers community operators to construct a brighter future for broadband networks. Lowering prices, simplifying networks, and enabling high-quality providers might help make the web extra inexpensive and ubiquitous with higher end-user experiences for all.
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