Automated deployment and management of distributed units in radio-based networks

1. A system, comprising:

an edge device of a cloud provider network at an edge location, the edge device being executed on a computing device having a physical layer accelerator specialized for distributed unit (DU) physical layer communication; and

a computing device different from the edge device, the computing device being in a region of the cloud provider network and configured to at least:

receive a request to deploy a radio-based network at least partially using infrastructure of the cloud provider network;

configure the provider substrate extension to perform a set of DU functions for the radio-based network in response to the request;

configure the set of DU functions to communicate with a set of centralized unit (CU) functions via a virtual private cloud network; and

configure the set of DU functions to communicate with a radio unit co-located at the edge location;

receiving a confirmation that the edge device is online at the edge location; and

providing a wireless network via the radio unit using the set of DU functions and the set of CU functions.

2. The system of claim 1 , wherein the computing device is further configured to at least configure the set of DU functions to communicate with a set of other DU functions for the radio-based network via the virtual private cloud network.

3. The system of claim 1 , wherein the computing device is further configured to at least:

determine that an updated version of the set of DU functions is available; and

automatically deploy the updated version of the set of DU functions to the provider substrate extension.

4. The system of claim 1 , wherein the edge device is executed on the computing device having an off-load device specialized for performing virtualization functions for the edge device.

5. The system of claim 1 , wherein the computing device is further configured to at least transfer a set of core network functions for the radio-based network from a data center of the cloud provider network to the edge location.

6. The system of claim 1 , wherein the set of DU functions are executed by respective containers in a container execution environment of the edge device.

7. A computer-implemented method, comprising:

determining to deploy a radio-based network at least partially using infrastructure of a cloud provider network;

deploying a radio access network (RAN)-enabled edge server of the cloud provider network to a physical location of the radio-based network; and

configuring the RAN-enabled edge server to perform a set of distributed unit (DU) functions for the radio-based network.

8. The computer-implemented method of claim 7 , further comprising automatically applying a default configuration to the set of DU functions.

9. The computer-implemented method of claim 7 , further comprising configuring the RAN-enabled edge server to perform a set of core network functions for the radio-based network.

10. The computer-implemented method of claim 7 , further comprising moving a customer workload from the RAN-enabled edge server to another location in the cloud provider network to provide increased computing resources to the set of DU functions.

11. The computer-implemented method of claim 7 , further comprising moving a customer workload to the RAN-enabled edge server from another location in the cloud provider network in response to determining that computing capacity is available in the RAN-enabled edge server.

12. The computer-implemented method of claim 7 , further comprising configuring the set of DU functions to communicate with a centralized unit (CU) in the cloud provider network via a virtual private cloud network.

13. The computer-implemented method of claim 7 , further comprising:

determining that an updated version of the set of DU functions is available; and

automatically deploying the updated version of the set of DU functions to the RAN-enabled edge server, wherein the updated version of the set of DU functions corresponds to respective updated containers for the set of DU functions.

14. The computer-implemented method of claim 7 , further comprising configuring a container execution environment in the RAN-enabled edge server to execute a plurality of containers respectively corresponding to the set of DU functions.

15. The computer-implemented method of claim 7 , wherein the RAN-enabled edge server includes a physical layer accelerator specialized for DU physical layer communication.

16. The computer-implemented method of claim 7 , wherein the RAN-enabled edge server includes an off-load device specialized for performing virtualization functions or container management functions for the RAN-enabled edge server.

17. The computer-implemented method of claim 7 , wherein one or more radio units of the radio-based network are co-located at the physical location.

18. A non-transitory computer-readable medium embodying instructions executable in a computing device, wherein when executed the instructions cause the computing device to at least:

receive a request to deploy a radio-based network at least partially using infrastructure of a cloud provider network;

configure a first radio access network (RAN)-enabled edge server of the cloud provider network at a first edge location to perform a first set of distributed unit (DU) functions for the radio-based network in response to the request; and

configure a second RAN-enabled edge server of the cloud provider network at a second edge location to perform a second set of DU functions for the radio-based network in response to the request.

19. The non-transitory computer-readable medium of claim 18 , wherein when executed the instructions further cause the computing device to at least configure the first set of DU functions and the second set of DU functions to communicate with a set of centralized unit (CU) functions at a data center of the cloud provider network via a virtual private cloud network.

20. The non-transitory computer-readable medium of claim 18 , wherein when executed the instructions further cause the computing device to at least configure the first set of DU functions to communicate with the second set of DU functions via a virtual private cloud network.