release/2.0.rst - aether-docs - Gitiles

 Aether 2.0 Release
 ==================

 Aether Highlights
 -----------------

 This release of Aether, the first to `fully embrace open
 source <https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/onfs-leading-private-5g-connected-edge-platform-aether-now-released-to-open-source-301487587.html>`__,
 adds two exciting new capabilities. The first is support for 5G
 deployments, enabling greatly increased bandwidth compared to 4G-based
 deployments. Complementing 5G is our P4 based mobile-core User Plane
 Function (UPF), which offers a high performance hardware-accelerated
 datapath that does not need to be routed through compute-based software
 UPFs. Aether maintains backward compatibility with 4G, and both 4G and
 5G slices may make use of both software and hardware based UPFs. P4
 hardware and BESS software UPFs can be deployed side-by-side in a hybrid
 deployment.

 As part of this release, several edge applications have been showcased
 on the Aether platform. We demonstrated the first Aether-interactive
 smart application, an OpenVINO based AI/ML person-detection application
 that dynamically increases network-bandwidth for video recording
 purposes when a person is detected, and then dynamically reduces the
 same when people are no longer detected. In partnership with Intel,
 we have also deployed an anomaly detection application on the Aether
 platform that runs as an edge application, monitors a manufacturing or
 packaging line of product samples, and then uses an AI/ML algorithm to
 detect anomalies in real time. These applications were demonstrated at
 Mobile World Congress 2022 in Barcelona last week.

 The transition to open source will further increase the pace of Aether
 development, putting it within the reach of the 5G and edge developer
 community that ONF has been cultivating and encouraging. Developer
 contributions are welcome, and increased access will allow increased
 adoption of this technology.

 Features & Improvements
 -----------------------

 New 5G features
 """""""""""""""

 This release of Aether incorporates SD-Core 1.1, which includes
 integration with 5G gNB small-cells from T&W running 5G-SA RAN stack
 from Radisys, 5G slices with Application filtering, and a policy
 framework that supports QoS at multiple levels - subscribers,
 applications and slices. For more details, please refer to the SD-Core
 1.1 Release notes.

 SD-Fabric Integration
 """""""""""""""""""""

 This release of Aether incorporates SD-Fabric 1.1. While previous
 releases of Aether supported SD-Fabric as a “Beta” feature, this release
 officially supports the P4 UPF and other SD-Fabric features like paired
 leaf-switches with dual UPFs for High Availability.

 The P4 UPF may now be added to Aether as an available UPF. In addition
 to a single P4 UPF, Aether continues to allow multiple BESS UPFs to be
 deployed alongside the P4 UPF. The user can decide at slice provisioning
 time whether a slice should use the P4 UPF or a BESS UPF. UPFs may only
 be bound to one slice at a time. The P4 UPF and the BESS UPF both
 support application filtering and QoS metering. The BESS UPF has been
 enhanced to include additional per-flow metrics.

 For more details, please refer to the SD-Fabric 1.1 Release notes.

 Sim-Card and Device Modeling
 """"""""""""""""""""""""""""

 The Aether configuration model has been enhanced to include support for
 *SIM card* and *device* modeling. The lifecycle of a device is now
 decoupled from the lifecycle of the SIM card that is attached to that
 device. Devices can be created in the modeling before their SIM cards
 are created, and devices may continue to exist after their SIM cards
 have been removed. A removed SIM card can be associated with a different
 device.

 Aether may be configured to automatically learn of provisioned SIM cards
 and add them to the enterprise configuration. An administrator may then
 see the list of available SIM cards and choose which one to add to a
 device.

 The model tree has been revised to be more hierarchical. For example,
 Slices are now contained within Sites, and Sites are contained within
 Enterprises. This eliminated many of the boilerplate Slice and
 Enterprise links that used to be present in the Aether-1.6 models, and
 it provides automatic enforcement of objects to the appropriate scope.

 Configuration System Improvements
 """""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""

 Aether’s ROC configuration system internals were redesigned and
 reimplemented to address various instability issues and incorporate new
 patterns and architectures. The controllers at the core of onos-config
 were `redesigned in
 TLA+ <https://github.com/onosproject/onos-tlaplus/blob/master/Config/Config.pdf>`__
 – a machine-checked formal specification language – to develop a more
 stable and viable architecture long-term, and the controllers were
 reimplemented according to the new design. On the northbound, new gNMI
 extensions make onos-config’s handling of gNMI Set and Get requests
 configurable with support for various consistency strategies when
 propagating changes to gNMI targets. On the southbound, support was
 added for handling non-persistent targets (recovering target
 configuration after restarts). For additional information, please see
 the `README
 file <https://github.com/onosproject/onos-config/blob/master/docs/README.md>`__
 for the configuration system.

 Support for complex validation rules
 """"""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""

 Aether now has support for complex validation rules (“guardrails”) to
 prevent misconfiguration of the system. These guardrails are specified
 using Aether’s yang modeling language, allowing Aether staff to easily
 add more rules as the need arises.

 Data Plane Optimization
 """""""""""""""""""""""

 Prior releases of Aether passed data plane traffic through the
 management server. Aether 2.0 has been optimized so that this is no
 longer necessary. User traffic is now processed by the P4-UPF or the
 BESS-UPF and then forwarded upstream (or to edge-applications) directly
 by the dataplane (fabric) leaf-switch.

 Furthermore, we now support more common enterprise deployments where the
 radio access nodes (eNBs/gNBs) connect to the enterprise L3-routed
 network, rather than connect directly to our fabric. We also simplified
 configuration to support the use of fabric-switch front panel ports
 rather than using the confusing, device-specific SDK ports.

 Aether Testing
 --------------

 Aether uses automated testing based on Jenkins and Robot Framework. The
 tests performed are described below.

 SD-Core Tests:

 * 4G

    * Functional coverage: attach, detach, dataplane traffic, handover,
      TAU, paging, error scenarios, failure/restart of network
      functions

 * 5G

    * Functional Coverage: register, deregister, dataplane traffic
      scenarios, handover, TAU, DDN, few error scenarios, few
      failure/restart of network functions, application filtering,
      QoS

 * Jenkins jobs for functional can be found at

    * https://jenkins.aetherproject.org/view/SD%20Core%20System%20Tests/

 ROC:

 * Functional API

 * Related Jenkins jobs

    * https://jenkins.aetherproject.org/view/ROC%20System%20Tests/

 Aether System Tests

 * 5G

    * Functional testing includes multiple slice creations,
      enable/disable of device groups, QoS validations, rate limiting
      tests (at UE, slice, application), application filtering tests,
      container restart tests

 * 4G

    * Functional testing includes multiple slice creations,
      enable/disable of device groups, QoS validations, rate limiting
      tests (at UE, slice, application), application filtering tests,
      container restart tests

 * Jenkins Jobs:

    * https://jenkins.aetherproject.org/view/Aether%20System%20Tests/

 Documentation
 -------------

 Aether documentation is available at
 `docs.aetherproject.org <http://docs.aetherproject.org>`__.

 Limitations and Known Issues
 ----------------------------

 *  Each site should be configured with a different “Enterprise ID”.

 *  The P4 UPF does not support Slice MBR, which requires leaving out the
    `configuration endpoint` configuration for P4 UPFs.
    Additionally, only 1 slice can currently use a P4 UPF. The next
    release of Aether will remove both limitations.

 *  The transaction history page on the operations portal is not
    currently enabled; It will be available shortly after the first
    2.0 release.

 *  The Sim-Card model deviates from the ID convention used by the other
    models, using the field “sim-id” instead of “sim-card-id”.

 *  IMSIs should not be removed from Simapp. They may be added at any
    time.

 *  When running the ROC GUI in the Firefox browser, it is possible to enter
    non-numeric characters in to numeric fields.

 *  Application filtering is not available for some combinations of 5G UEs and
    5G gNBs. For 5G slices, it is recommended that default behavior be set to
    ALLOW-ALL and application filtering rules not be added at this time.

 Aether 2.0.0 Release
 --------------------

 Aether 2.0.0 is the base release of the 2.0 branch.

 Aether 2.0.0 Component Versions
 """""""""""""""""""""""""""""""

 ROC:

 * atomix-controller: 0.6.9

 * atomix-raft-storage: 0.1.25

 * onos-operator: 0.5.1

 * aether-roc-umbrella: 2.0.43

 :doc:`SD-Core 1.1 <sdcore:release/1.1>`

 * sdcore-helm-chart: 0.10.16 (Umbrella Helm Chart)

    * Omec-control-plane : 0.10.11

    * Omec-sub-provision : 0.4.5

    * 5g-control-plane : 0.6.19

    * 5g-ran-sim: 0.4.11

 UPF: bess-upf: 0.0.5

 :doc:`SD-Fabric 1.1 <sdfabric:release/1.1.0>`

 * sdfabric: 1.1.0

 Hardware and Vendor Dependencies:

 * Sercomm eNB: Firmware version 3922

 * Radisys 5G-SA RAN stack: TRILLIUM_5GNR_NXP_GNB_AIO_QCOM_SUB6_WITH_DPDK_BIN_REL_2.4.3

 * T&W gNB: 5G Sub-6GHz Small Cell (N78, 8GB DDR, With housing), Model SDQ001-RU (N78)

 Aether 2.0.1 Release
 --------------------

 Minor release to fix SD-Core issues.

 Aether 2.0.1 Component Versions
 """""""""""""""""""""""""""""""

 ROC:

 * atomix-controller: 0.6.9

 * atomix-raft-storage: 0.1.25

 * onos-operator: 0.5.1

 * aether-roc-umbrella: 2.0.43

 :doc:`SD-Core 1.1.1 <sdcore:release/1.1>`

 * sdcore-helm-chart: 0.10.18 (Umbrella Helm Chart)

    * Omec-control-plane : 0.10.12

    * Omec-sub-provision : 0.4.5

    * 5g-control-plane : 0.6.20

    * 5g-ran-sim: 0.4.12

 UPF: bess-upf: 0.0.5

 :doc:`SD-Fabric 1.1 <sdfabric:release/1.1.0>`

 * sdfabric: 1.1.0

 Hardware and Vendor Dependencies:

 * Sercomm eNB: Firmware version 3922

 * Radisys 5G-SA RAN stack: TRILLIUM_5GNR_NXP_GNB_AIO_QCOM_SUB6_WITH_DPDK_BIN_REL_2.4.3

 * T&W gNB: 5G Sub-6GHz Small Cell (N78, 8GB DDR, With housing), Model SDQ001-RU (N78)


 Aether 2.0.2 Release
 --------------------

 Minor release to fix ROC and GUI related issues.

 * Fetching of intermediate lists within the configuration tree, for example Applications, is now supported.

 * Subscriber-Proxy now supports deletes / shrinking of IMSI ranges.

 * Fixed a bug where sdcore-adapter would fail to propagate a deleted device-group or slice to the core.

 * Improvements to logging in sdcore-adapter, and a REST endpoint to dynamically change log levels.

 * An endpoint has been added to the aether-roc-api that allows fetching of IP addresses for devices.

 * GUI: Added the ability to remove SIM Cards from Devices.

 * GUI: Fixed a bug where IP-Domains were not loaded properly in Device-Group edit page.

 * GUI: Display a reason why the Application select box might be empty in a Slice.

 * GUI: Transaction list is now populated.


 Aether 2.0.2 Component Versions
 """""""""""""""""""""""""""""""

 ROC:

 * atomix-controller: 0.6.9

 * atomix-raft-storage: 0.1.25

 * onos-operator: 0.5.1

 * aether-roc-umbrella: 2.0.47

 :doc:`SD-Core 1.1.1 <sdcore:release/1.1>`

 * sdcore-helm-chart: 0.10.18 (Umbrella Helm Chart)

    * Omec-control-plane : 0.10.12

    * Omec-sub-provision : 0.4.5

    * 5g-control-plane : 0.6.20

    * 5g-ran-sim: 0.4.12

 UPF: bess-upf: 0.0.5

 :doc:`SD-Fabric 1.1 <sdfabric:release/1.1.1>`

 * sdfabric: 1.1.1

 Hardware and Vendor Dependencies:

 * Sercomm eNB: Firmware version 3922

 * Radisys 5G-SA RAN stack: TRILLIUM_5GNR_NXP_GNB_AIO_QCOM_SUB6_WITH_DPDK_BIN_REL_2.4.3

 * T&W gNB: 5G Sub-6GHz Small Cell (N78, 8GB DDR, With housing), Model SDQ001-RU (N78)
	Aether 2.0 Release
	==================

	Aether Highlights
	-----------------

	This release of Aether, the first to `fully embrace open
	source <https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/onfs-leading-private-5g-connected-edge-platform-aether-now-released-to-open-source-301487587.html>`__,
	adds two exciting new capabilities. The first is support for 5G
	deployments, enabling greatly increased bandwidth compared to 4G-based
	deployments. Complementing 5G is our P4 based mobile-core User Plane
	Function (UPF), which offers a high performance hardware-accelerated
	datapath that does not need to be routed through compute-based software
	UPFs. Aether maintains backward compatibility with 4G, and both 4G and
	5G slices may make use of both software and hardware based UPFs. P4
	hardware and BESS software UPFs can be deployed side-by-side in a hybrid
	deployment.

	As part of this release, several edge applications have been showcased
	on the Aether platform. We demonstrated the first Aether-interactive
	smart application, an OpenVINO based AI/ML person-detection application
	that dynamically increases network-bandwidth for video recording
	purposes when a person is detected, and then dynamically reduces the
	same when people are no longer detected. In partnership with Intel,
	we have also deployed an anomaly detection application on the Aether
	platform that runs as an edge application, monitors a manufacturing or
	packaging line of product samples, and then uses an AI/ML algorithm to
	detect anomalies in real time. These applications were demonstrated at
	Mobile World Congress 2022 in Barcelona last week.

	The transition to open source will further increase the pace of Aether
	development, putting it within the reach of the 5G and edge developer
	community that ONF has been cultivating and encouraging. Developer
	contributions are welcome, and increased access will allow increased
	adoption of this technology.

	Features & Improvements
	-----------------------

	New 5G features
	"""""""""""""""

	This release of Aether incorporates SD-Core 1.1, which includes
	integration with 5G gNB small-cells from T&W running 5G-SA RAN stack
	from Radisys, 5G slices with Application filtering, and a policy
	framework that supports QoS at multiple levels - subscribers,
	applications and slices. For more details, please refer to the SD-Core
	1.1 Release notes.

	SD-Fabric Integration
	"""""""""""""""""""""

	This release of Aether incorporates SD-Fabric 1.1. While previous
	releases of Aether supported SD-Fabric as a “Beta” feature, this release
	officially supports the P4 UPF and other SD-Fabric features like paired
	leaf-switches with dual UPFs for High Availability.

	The P4 UPF may now be added to Aether as an available UPF. In addition
	to a single P4 UPF, Aether continues to allow multiple BESS UPFs to be
	deployed alongside the P4 UPF. The user can decide at slice provisioning
	time whether a slice should use the P4 UPF or a BESS UPF. UPFs may only
	be bound to one slice at a time. The P4 UPF and the BESS UPF both
	support application filtering and QoS metering. The BESS UPF has been
	enhanced to include additional per-flow metrics.

	For more details, please refer to the SD-Fabric 1.1 Release notes.

	Sim-Card and Device Modeling
	""""""""""""""""""""""""""""

	The Aether configuration model has been enhanced to include support for
	SIM card and device modeling. The lifecycle of a device is now
	decoupled from the lifecycle of the SIM card that is attached to that
	device. Devices can be created in the modeling before their SIM cards
	are created, and devices may continue to exist after their SIM cards
	have been removed. A removed SIM card can be associated with a different
	device.

	Aether may be configured to automatically learn of provisioned SIM cards
	and add them to the enterprise configuration. An administrator may then
	see the list of available SIM cards and choose which one to add to a
	device.

	The model tree has been revised to be more hierarchical. For example,
	Slices are now contained within Sites, and Sites are contained within
	Enterprises. This eliminated many of the boilerplate Slice and
	Enterprise links that used to be present in the Aether-1.6 models, and
	it provides automatic enforcement of objects to the appropriate scope.

	Configuration System Improvements
	"""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""

	Aether’s ROC configuration system internals were redesigned and
	reimplemented to address various instability issues and incorporate new
	patterns and architectures. The controllers at the core of onos-config
	were `redesigned in
	TLA+ <https://github.com/onosproject/onos-tlaplus/blob/master/Config/Config.pdf>`__
	– a machine-checked formal specification language – to develop a more
	stable and viable architecture long-term, and the controllers were
	reimplemented according to the new design. On the northbound, new gNMI
	extensions make onos-config’s handling of gNMI Set and Get requests
	configurable with support for various consistency strategies when
	propagating changes to gNMI targets. On the southbound, support was
	added for handling non-persistent targets (recovering target
	configuration after restarts). For additional information, please see
	the `README
	file <https://github.com/onosproject/onos-config/blob/master/docs/README.md>`__
	for the configuration system.

	Support for complex validation rules
	""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""

	Aether now has support for complex validation rules (“guardrails”) to
	prevent misconfiguration of the system. These guardrails are specified
	using Aether’s yang modeling language, allowing Aether staff to easily
	add more rules as the need arises.

	Data Plane Optimization
	"""""""""""""""""""""""

	Prior releases of Aether passed data plane traffic through the
	management server. Aether 2.0 has been optimized so that this is no
	longer necessary. User traffic is now processed by the P4-UPF or the
	BESS-UPF and then forwarded upstream (or to edge-applications) directly
	by the dataplane (fabric) leaf-switch.

	Furthermore, we now support more common enterprise deployments where the
	radio access nodes (eNBs/gNBs) connect to the enterprise L3-routed
	network, rather than connect directly to our fabric. We also simplified
	configuration to support the use of fabric-switch front panel ports
	rather than using the confusing, device-specific SDK ports.

	Aether Testing
	--------------

	Aether uses automated testing based on Jenkins and Robot Framework. The
	tests performed are described below.

	SD-Core Tests:

	* 4G

	* Functional coverage: attach, detach, dataplane traffic, handover,
	TAU, paging, error scenarios, failure/restart of network
	functions

	* 5G

	* Functional Coverage: register, deregister, dataplane traffic
	scenarios, handover, TAU, DDN, few error scenarios, few
	failure/restart of network functions, application filtering,
	QoS

	* Jenkins jobs for functional can be found at

	* https://jenkins.aetherproject.org/view/SD%20Core%20System%20Tests/

	ROC:

	* Functional API

	* Related Jenkins jobs

	* https://jenkins.aetherproject.org/view/ROC%20System%20Tests/

	Aether System Tests

	* 5G

	* Functional testing includes multiple slice creations,
	enable/disable of device groups, QoS validations, rate limiting
	tests (at UE, slice, application), application filtering tests,
	container restart tests

	* 4G

	* Functional testing includes multiple slice creations,
	enable/disable of device groups, QoS validations, rate limiting
	tests (at UE, slice, application), application filtering tests,
	container restart tests

	* Jenkins Jobs:

	* https://jenkins.aetherproject.org/view/Aether%20System%20Tests/

	Documentation
	-------------

	Aether documentation is available at
	`docs.aetherproject.org <http://docs.aetherproject.org>`__.

	Limitations and Known Issues
	----------------------------

	* Each site should be configured with a different “Enterprise ID”.

	* The P4 UPF does not support Slice MBR, which requires leaving out the
	`configuration endpoint` configuration for P4 UPFs.
	Additionally, only 1 slice can currently use a P4 UPF. The next
	release of Aether will remove both limitations.

	* The transaction history page on the operations portal is not
	currently enabled; It will be available shortly after the first
	2.0 release.

	* The Sim-Card model deviates from the ID convention used by the other
	models, using the field “sim-id” instead of “sim-card-id”.

	* IMSIs should not be removed from Simapp. They may be added at any
	time.

	* When running the ROC GUI in the Firefox browser, it is possible to enter
	non-numeric characters in to numeric fields.

	* Application filtering is not available for some combinations of 5G UEs and
	5G gNBs. For 5G slices, it is recommended that default behavior be set to
	ALLOW-ALL and application filtering rules not be added at this time.

	Aether 2.0.0 Release
	--------------------

	Aether 2.0.0 is the base release of the 2.0 branch.

	Aether 2.0.0 Component Versions
	"""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""

	ROC:

	* atomix-controller: 0.6.9

	* atomix-raft-storage: 0.1.25

	* onos-operator: 0.5.1

	* aether-roc-umbrella: 2.0.43

	:doc:`SD-Core 1.1 <sdcore:release/1.1>`

	* sdcore-helm-chart: 0.10.16 (Umbrella Helm Chart)

	* Omec-control-plane : 0.10.11

	* Omec-sub-provision : 0.4.5

	* 5g-control-plane : 0.6.19

	* 5g-ran-sim: 0.4.11

	UPF: bess-upf: 0.0.5

	:doc:`SD-Fabric 1.1 <sdfabric:release/1.1.0>`

	* sdfabric: 1.1.0

	Hardware and Vendor Dependencies:

	* Sercomm eNB: Firmware version 3922

	* Radisys 5G-SA RAN stack: TRILLIUM_5GNR_NXP_GNB_AIO_QCOM_SUB6_WITH_DPDK_BIN_REL_2.4.3

	* T&W gNB: 5G Sub-6GHz Small Cell (N78, 8GB DDR, With housing), Model SDQ001-RU (N78)

	Aether 2.0.1 Release
	--------------------

	Minor release to fix SD-Core issues.

	Aether 2.0.1 Component Versions
	"""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""

	ROC:

	* atomix-controller: 0.6.9

	* atomix-raft-storage: 0.1.25

	* onos-operator: 0.5.1

	* aether-roc-umbrella: 2.0.43

	:doc:`SD-Core 1.1.1 <sdcore:release/1.1>`

	* sdcore-helm-chart: 0.10.18 (Umbrella Helm Chart)

	* Omec-control-plane : 0.10.12

	* Omec-sub-provision : 0.4.5

	* 5g-control-plane : 0.6.20

	* 5g-ran-sim: 0.4.12

	UPF: bess-upf: 0.0.5

	:doc:`SD-Fabric 1.1 <sdfabric:release/1.1.0>`

	* sdfabric: 1.1.0

	Hardware and Vendor Dependencies:

	* Sercomm eNB: Firmware version 3922

	* Radisys 5G-SA RAN stack: TRILLIUM_5GNR_NXP_GNB_AIO_QCOM_SUB6_WITH_DPDK_BIN_REL_2.4.3

	* T&W gNB: 5G Sub-6GHz Small Cell (N78, 8GB DDR, With housing), Model SDQ001-RU (N78)


	Aether 2.0.2 Release
	--------------------

	Minor release to fix ROC and GUI related issues.

	* Fetching of intermediate lists within the configuration tree, for example Applications, is now supported.

	* Subscriber-Proxy now supports deletes / shrinking of IMSI ranges.

	* Fixed a bug where sdcore-adapter would fail to propagate a deleted device-group or slice to the core.

	* Improvements to logging in sdcore-adapter, and a REST endpoint to dynamically change log levels.

	* An endpoint has been added to the aether-roc-api that allows fetching of IP addresses for devices.

	* GUI: Added the ability to remove SIM Cards from Devices.

	* GUI: Fixed a bug where IP-Domains were not loaded properly in Device-Group edit page.

	* GUI: Display a reason why the Application select box might be empty in a Slice.

	* GUI: Transaction list is now populated.


	Aether 2.0.2 Component Versions
	"""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""

	ROC:

	* atomix-controller: 0.6.9

	* atomix-raft-storage: 0.1.25

	* onos-operator: 0.5.1

	* aether-roc-umbrella: 2.0.47

	:doc:`SD-Core 1.1.1 <sdcore:release/1.1>`

	* sdcore-helm-chart: 0.10.18 (Umbrella Helm Chart)

	* Omec-control-plane : 0.10.12

	* Omec-sub-provision : 0.4.5

	* 5g-control-plane : 0.6.20

	* 5g-ran-sim: 0.4.12

	UPF: bess-upf: 0.0.5

	:doc:`SD-Fabric 1.1 <sdfabric:release/1.1.1>`

	* sdfabric: 1.1.1

	Hardware and Vendor Dependencies:

	* Sercomm eNB: Firmware version 3922

	* Radisys 5G-SA RAN stack: TRILLIUM_5GNR_NXP_GNB_AIO_QCOM_SUB6_WITH_DPDK_BIN_REL_2.4.3

	* T&W gNB: 5G Sub-6GHz Small Cell (N78, 8GB DDR, With housing), Model SDQ001-RU (N78)