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- UPF Distribution/Shunting -- distributing User Plane Functions in the appropriate Data Center Facilities on qualified compute hardware for routing the traffic to desired applications and network/processing functions/applications.
- Local Break-Out (LBO) – Examples: video traffic offload, low latency services, roaming optimization.
- Location Services -- the location of a specific UE, or identification of UEs within a geographical area, facilitation of server-side application workload distribution based on UE and infrastructure resource location.
- QoS acceleration/extension – provide low latency, high throughput for Edge applications. Example: provide continuity for QoS provisioned for subscribers in the MNO domain, across the interconnection/networking domain for end-to-end QoS functionality.
- Network Slicing provisioning and management - providing continuity for network slices instantiated in the MNO domain, across the Public Cloud Core/Edge as well as the 3Rd-Party Edge domains, offering dedicated resources specifically tailored for application and functional needs (e.g. security) needs.
- Mobile Hybrid/Multi-Cloud Access - provide multi-MNO, multi-Cloud, multi-MEC access for mobile devices (including IoT) and Edge services/applications
- Enterprise Wireless WAN access - provide high-speed Fixed Wireless Access to enterprises with the ability to interconnect to Public Cloud and 3rd-Party Edge Functions, including the Network Functions such as SD-WAN.
- Authentication – provide service enablement (e.g., two-factor authentication) used by most OTT service providers
- Security – provide service enablement (e.g., firewall service insertion)
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Public Cloud Service Providers and 3rd-Party MEC Providers are deploying Edge instances to better serve their end-users and applications, A multitude of these applications require close inter-working with the MNO Edge deployments to provide predictable latency & throughput, reliability and other telco-grade requirements. The purpose of this blueprint family is to specify a standard set of APIs to expose towards Public Cloud and 3rd-Party MEC Service Provider instances at the Edge.
The need to interface and exchange information through these open APIs will allow competitive offerings for Consumers, Enterprises, and Vertical Industry end-user segments. For instance, open APIs will be provided between Telcos and public cloud edge compute platforms such as Google Cloud Platform (GCP) Anthos, AliCloud Edge Node Service (ENS), AWS Wavelength, Microsoft Azure Edge Zones, Tencent ECM, to name a few. These APIs are not limited to providing basic connectivity services but will include ability to deliver predictable data rate, predictable latency, reliability, service insertion, security, AI and RAN analytics, network slicing, and more. These capabilities are needed to support a multitude of emerging applications such as AR/VR, Industrial IoT, autonomous vehicles, drones, Industry 4.0 initiatives, Smart Cities, Smart Ports. Other APIs will include exposure to edge orchestration and management, Edge monitoring (KPIs), and more. These open APIs will be foundation for service and instrumentation APIs when integrating with public cloud development environments and will be defined as part of the implementation. Even though these APIs will be common across all Telco operators, the differentiation will based on services provided through those APIs.
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Note that as part of the Southbound capabilities, there is a need for APIs exposed by the Data Center providers, Bare-Metal Hardware Orchestration providers as well as the Interconnection providers in order to facilitate distribution of processing resources as well as the interconnection between multiple entities providing/consuming Edge services/applications.
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