PROVISIONING AND DEPLOYING RAN APPLICATIONS IN A RAN SYSTEM
Some embodiments of the invention provide a method for providing automated admission control services for a RAN system. The method receives a trigger alert that includes an application identifier for an application, a dRIC identifier associated with a dRIC to which the application is to be deployed, and a set of configurations for the application that are in a first format. The method converts the set of configurations from the first format to a second format and sends the set configurations in the second format to an FCAPS management pod deployed to the dRIC. Upon receiving positive acknowledgment indicating successful implementation of the set of configurations from the FCAPS management pod, the method updates a configuration table stored in a database of the RAN with a set of admissions control information for the application. The method sends a notification to an API server for the RAN indicating the set of configurations have been successfully implemented for the application.
1 . A method of automatically provisioning RAN (Radio Access Network) applications in a RAN system comprising a set of RICs (RAN intelligent controllers) and at least one RIC management system (RMS), the method comprising:
at the RMS:
from a particular RIC (RAN intelligent controller) that receives and parses files that define RAN applications for deployment, receiving an identity of a particular RAN application to be deployed in the RAN system;
storing the identity of the particular RAN application in a RAN application data store of the RMS;
instructing the particular RIC to associate the particular RAN application with a datapath in the particular RIC for the particular RAN application to use for communication between the particular RAN application and one or more base station components; and
after receiving a positive acknowledgement from the particular RIC that the particular RAN application has been associated with the RIC datapath, instructing the particular RIC to deploy the particular RAN application.
2 . The method of claim 1 , wherein instructing the particular RIC to associate the particular RAN application with the RIC datapath comprises instructing a configuration service of the particular RIC (i) to associate the particular RAN application with one RIC datapath in a set of one or more RIC datapaths that the RIC uses for communications to and from RAN applications and (ii) to add the particular RAN application to an allow list of the associated RIC datapath.
3 . The method of claim 2 , wherein the particular RIC has a plurality of datapath pods that implement the RIC datapaths in the set of RIC datapaths, wherein each datapath pod comprises at least one datapath thread for processing communications between RAN applications and base station components, and at least one control thread for configuring the datapath thread.
4 . The method of claim 3 , wherein at least one datapath pod comprises (i) a plurality of datapath threads and (ii) one control thread for configuring the plurality of datapath threads.
5 . The method of claim 3 , wherein adding the particular RAN application to the allow list of the associated RIC datapath comprises adding the RAN application to an admission control list maintained by a control thread of a datapath pod that has a datapath thread that implements the associated RIC datapath.
6 . The method of claim 1 , wherein
the particular RIC receives and parses RAN application CRs (custom resources) that define RAN applications for deployment, and
receiving the identity of the particular RAN application to be deployed in the RAN system comprises receiving the particular RAN application identity with a parsed set of configuration data that the particular RIC parses from a RAN application CR of the particular RAN application.
7 . The method of claim 6 , wherein after receiving the positive acknowledgement from the particular RIC that the particular RAN application has been associated with the RIC datapath, the method further comprises writing the parsed set of configuration data that defines the particular RAN application to a configuration datastore of the RMS with a state of the set of configuration marked as success indicating the particular RAN application's datapath has been successfully provisioned.
8 . The method of claim 7 , wherein writing the set of configuration data for the particular RAN application to the configuration datastore comprises converting the parsed configuration data from a first format to a second format that is easier to review by a network operator than the first format, and writing the set of parsed configuration data in the second format in the configuration datastore that is accessible by the network operator.
9 . The method of claim 8 , wherein the second format comprises a JSON format.
10 . The method of claim 6 , wherein the set of parsed configuration data comprising at least (i) a global identifier assigned to the particular RAN application to uniquely identify the particular RAN application, and (ii) a RIC identifier assigned to the particular RIC.
11 . The method of claim 10 , wherein instructing the particular RIC to associate the particular RAN application with the RIC datapath for communication between the particular RAN application and one or more base station components comprises providing the global identifier assigned to the particular RAN application to the particular RIC, wherein the particular RIC associates the particular RAN application with the RIC datapath using the global identifier assigned to the particular RAN application.
12 . The method of claim 11 , wherein the global identifier is assigned to the particular RAN application by the particular RIC.
13 . The method of claim 10 , wherein the received set of parsed configuration data from the particular RIC further comprises
at least one supported configuration schema (i) that is supported by the RMS and (ii) that defines the particular RAN application;
a set of key value attributes comprising one or more custom key value pairs that define one or more custom attributes of the particular RAN application based on a generic key value schema supported by the RMS; and
one or more metrics to be extracted from the particular RAN application during runtime for publication.
14 . The method of claim 13 , wherein the supported schema comprises a plurality of supported key-value pairs.
15 . The method of claim 13 , wherein the one or more custom attributes comprise one or more custom attributes that supplement attributes defined using the supported configuration schema.
16 . The method of claim 6 , wherein receiving the set of parsed configuration data for the particular RAN application from the particular RIC comprises receiving, via an O1 agent of the particular RIC, the set of parsed configuration data that was parsed from a particular CR for the particular RAN application by a lifecycle management (LCM) pod of the particular RIC, the LCM pod parsing RAN application CRs that are defined based on a RAN application custom resource definition (CRD).
17 . The method of claim 1 , wherein the RMS manages at least the particular RIC from the set of RICs of the RAN system.
18 . The method of claim 1 , wherein the RAN system comprises an Open-RAN (O-RAN) system.
19 . A non-transitory machine readable medium storing a program for execution by a set of processing units, the program for a RIC (RAN (Radio Access Network) intelligent controller) management system (RMS) that automatically provisions RAN applications in a RAN system comprising a set of RICs and the RMS, the program comprising sets of instructions for:
from a particular RIC (RAN intelligent controller) that receives and parses files that define RAN applications for deployment, receiving an identity of a particular RAN application to be deployed in the RAN system;
storing the identity of the particular RAN application in a RAN application data store of the RMS;
instructing the particular RIC to associate the particular RAN application with a datapath in the particular RIC for the particular RAN application to use for communication between the particular RAN application and one or more base station components; and
after receiving a positive acknowledgement from the particular RIC that the particular RAN application has been associated with the RIC datapath, instructing the particular RIC to deploy the particular RAN application.
20 . The non-transitory machine readable medium of claim 19 , wherein the set of instructions for instructing the particular RIC to associate the particular RAN application with the RIC datapath comprises a set of instructions for instructing a configuration service of the particular RIC (i) to associate the particular RAN application with one RIC datapath in a set of one or more RIC datapaths that the RIC uses for communications to and from RAN applications and (ii) to add the particular RAN application to an allow list of the associated RIC datapath.