“Industry and Experience based knowledge sharing about Cloud ,5G ,Edge,O-RAN,Network Dis-aggregation and Industry 4.0 Transformation ~ A Cloud Architect's Journey
Apparently and hopefully the APAC market has passed its Covid-19 driven Shallow Dip in economy due to lockdown and with markets opening there is a strong desire on both Australian government level and Private equities to accelerate growth through increased digitization . As per recent media talks by Government and Country’s Chief Scientist Dr Cathy Foley the Cloud Adoption is vital to increase public sector informed decisions to improve quality and experience for Australians
Although Cloud definitely delivers on its promise for quick ROI by virtue of Open API’s and Developer experience the hidden license and consumption model fees leads to pressure on business TCO and KPI’s as the platform stabilized .
It is always the last 10% that will be most difficult as company reaches its scale and need to Optimize its existing Apps and Infrastructure to generate value
Do we really have a cost model that can optimize the Cloud and get us rid of consumption model that only performs at scale ?
Cloud Optimization
In my last role i were appointed to conduct a huge exercise to lift applications from On-pre to the Cloud , our Infra had 300+ applications all the way from simple admin webapps to complex large Tier DB Exadata applications . The exercise lead to following reuslts
Most applications are not cloud ready and can not be lifted to Cloud with out refactoring
All App owners own their silo hardware and there is no uniform tools on Infrastructure monitoring and capacity optimization
It helped us reach to conclusion just lifting everything to cloud is never going to work and may be Cloud Optimization is right approach to do including
Architecture for central monitoring
Use Inventory and Realtime data to optimize existing resource usage
Improved architectures to use Hardware accelerations when it outperforms commodity
Dropbox. When the company embarked on its infrastructure optimization initiative in 2016, they saved nearly $75M over two years by shifting the majority of their workloads from public cloud to “lower cost, custom-built infrastructure in co-location facilities”
source: Dropbox public information
Making right Cost equation form Hybrid Architecture
It is clear that if we can optimize the Cloud by finding a model that can help us rid of hidden costs from public clouds it can mean increased equity of at least 5% Market cap YoY which is why every CXO must analyze this
To understand this equation for a mid to large size company having cloud spend (~100M) the cost saving target from Hybrid or optimized cloud will be 50% of ~50M and 5% Cap will mean 2.5M YoY Market Cap improvements on company commitments through increase performance by cloud alone , so it is quite evident Cloud Optimization is necessary. There is no reason that we must move to cloud and keep there for religious dogma
Cooperation and not competition
Today we live in a world that value innovation more than tradition and that should continue with Cloud . For many initiatives including Edge i were often asked should we rely on on-prem vendors or hyperscalers to do it and my answer always is .
The market is too big to let one company fulfill its needs , There is due share for all
It is clear just in last year we have seen hyperscalers Amazon, Google and Microsoft that combine reaches a market cap exceeding 5Trillion have invested heavily on Telco and offerings for Cloud but how they do it obviously because they are making huge money by running their own infrastructures all the way from hardware to the Cloud ad Tools
Where the customer value is ?
There is hardly no way a customer can real Public cloud bill as the GPL and pricing are locked only way is to find the right model towards Hybrid Clouds that should be evolved as follows
The SaaS model for whole stack all the way from Hardware to software
The Inventory and tools that help to optimize the infrastructure vs new capacity every time
An architecture that can live all models private , public , on-prem etc
A migration mechanism to make workloads more portable as and when required
Since I have faced issued to upgrade my PC to latest Windows10 version and no useful community guide so i found it useful to share my experience and steps without deleted any of “VMWare” folders in your machine
Edge Deployments are gaining momentum in Australia APAC and rest of markets , due to sheer size of Edge there are new challenges and opportunities for all players in the Ecosystem including
Public Cloud and Hyperscalers like AWS , Azure , Google etc
SI’s like Southtel , Tech Mahindra etc
However one thing which a Telco community need to do is to make a standard architecture and specifications of Edge that will support not only build a thriving ecosystem but also achieve promises of global scale and developer experience . Within Open Infrastructure community we have been working with in Open Infra Edge computing group to achieve exactly this .
Focus Areas
Following is the Scope and areas we are enabling today
Defining Reference Architectures for Edge Delivery model in the form of Reference Architectures , Reference Model and Certification process where we are working together with #GSMA and #Anuket in Linux Foundation
Defining Use cases based on real RFX and Telco customer requirements
Requirements prioritization for each half year
Enabling Edge Ecosystem
Output the White paper specially on Implementation and Testing Frameworks
Edge Architectures
Alongside Linux foundation Akraino blueprints we are enabling blue prints and best practices in Edge user group however we are emphasizing that the Architecture remains as vendor agnostic as possible with different flavors and vendors solving following challenges Edge Computing Group – OpenStack
Life-cycle Management. A virtual-machine/container/bare-metal manager in charge of managing machine/container lifecycle (configuration, scheduling, deployment, suspend/resume, and shutdown). (Current Projects: TK)
Image Management. An image manager in charge of template files (a.k.a. virtual-machine/container images). (Current Projects: TK)
Network Management. A network manager in charge of providing connectivity to the infrastructure: virtual networks and external access for users. (Current Projects: TK)
Storage Management. A storage manager, providing storage services to edge applications. (Current Projects: TK)
Administrative. Administrative tools, providing user interfaces to operate and use the dispersed infrastructure. (Current Projects: TK)
Storage latency. Addressing storage latency over WAN connections.
Reinforced security at the edge. Monitoring the physical and application integrity of each site, with the ability to autonomously enable corrective actions when necessary.
Resource utilization monitoring. Monitor resource utilization across all nodes simultaneously.
Orchestration tools. Manage and coordinate many edge sites and workloads, potentially leading toward a peering control plane or “selforganizing edge.”
Federation of edge platforms orchestration (or cloud-of-clouds). Must be explored and introduced to the IaaS core services.
Automated edge commission/decommission operations. Includes initial software deployment and upgrades of the resource management system’s components.
Automated data and workload relocations. Load balancing across geographically distributed hardware.
Synchronization of abstract state propagation Needed at the “core” of the infrastructure to cope with discontinuous network links.
Network partitioning with limited connectivity New ways to deal with network partitioning issues due to limited connectivity—coping with short disconnections and long disconnections alike.
Manage application latency requirements. The definition of advanced placement constraints in order to cope with latency requirements of application components.
Application provisioning and scheduling. In order to satisfy placement requirements (initial placement).
Data and workload relocations. According to internal/external events (mobility use-cases, failures, performance considerations, and so forth).
Integration location awareness. Not all edge deployments will require the same application at the same moment. Location and demand awareness are a likely need.
Dynamic rebalancing of resources from remote sites. Discrete hardware with limited resources and limited ability to expand at the remote site needs to be taken into consideration when designing both the overall architecture at the macro level and the administrative tools. The concept of being able to grab remote resources on demand from other sites, either neighbors over a mesh network or from core elements in a hierarchical network, means that fluctuations in local demand can be met without inefficiency in hardware deployments.
Edge Standards under Review
Although owing to Carrier grade Telco service requirements on the Edge preference has always been on StarlingX and this is what are maturing to GA but there are many other standards we are standardizing at the Edge as follows
StarlingX
Complete cloud infrastructure solution for edge and IoT • Fusion between Kubernetes and OpenStack • Integrated stack • Installation package for the whole stack • Distributed cloud support
K3S and Minimal Kubernetes
Lightweight Kubernetes distribution
Single binary
Basic features added, like local storage provider, service load balancer, Traefik ingress controller
Tunnel Proxy
KubeEdge specially for IOT
Kubernetes distribution tailored for IoT
Has orchestration and device management features
Basic features added, like storage provider, service loadbalancer, ingress controller
Cloud Core and EdgeCore
Submariner
Cross Kubernetes cluster L3 connectivity over VPN tunnels
Following are the Steps to join as many guys reported they find issues in MIRC latest version after 7.5 so i wanted to give some summary here
Step1: Registration and Nickname setitngs
You may see some notices from Nickserv that the nick you use is already taken by someone else. The notice looks like this: Nickserv notice Well in this case you need to choose another nickname. You can do this easily by typing
/nick nick_of_your_choice
/nick john_doe
Nickserv will keep telling you this notice until you found a nick, which is not registered by someone else. If you want to use the same nick every time when you connect you may register it. The service called Nickserv handles the nicks of all registered users of the Network. The nick registration is free and you just need an email to confirm that you are a real person. To register the nick you currently use type
Note: Your email address will be kept confidential. We will never send you spam mails or mails were we request private data (like passwords, banking accounts, etc). After this you will see a notice from nickserv telling you this:
– NickServ – A passcode has been sent to myemail@address.net, please type /msg NickServ confirm <passcode> to complete registration
Check your email account for new mails. Some email providers like hotmail may drop our mail sent by our services into your spamfolder. Open the mail and you will find a text like this:
Hi, You have requested to register the following nickname some_nickname. Please type ” /msg NickServ confirm JpayrtZSx ” to complete registration. If you don’t know why this mail is sent to you, please ignore it silently. PLEASE DON’T ANSWER TO THIS MAIL! irchighway.net administrators.
Just copy and paste the part /msg NickServ confirm JpayrtZSx into your status window of you mIRC. Then press the enter key. A text like:
– *NickServ* confirm JpayrtZSx – – NickServ – Nickname some_nickname registered under your account: *q@*.1413884c.some.isp.net – – NickServ – Your password is supersecret – remember this for later use. – * some_nickname sets mode: +r
should appear after this. This means you finished your registration and the nick can only be used by you or you can force someone else if he/she uses your nick to give it back to you. If you disconnect then you need to tell nickserv that the nick is yours. you can do that by:
/nickserv identify password e.g. /nickserv identify supersecret
if the password is correct it should look like this:
* some_nickname sets mode: +r – – NickServ – Password accepted – you are now recognized.
In mIRC you can do the identification process automatically so you don’t have to care about this anymore. Open the mIRC Options by pressing he key combination Alt + O then select the category Options and click on Perform you will see this dialog: Perform window
Check Enable perform on connect and add: if ($network == irchighway) { /nickserv identify password } in the edit box called Perform commands Close the options by clicking OK. Now your mIRC will automatically identify you every time you connect to IRCHighway.
Step2: Setting SAS/CAP authentication
mIRC added built-in SASL support in version 7.48, released April 2017. The below instructions were written for version 7.51, released September 2017. Earlier versions of mIRC have unofficial third-party support for SASL, which is not documented here. freenode strongly recommends using the latest available version of your IRC client so that you are up-to-date with security fixes.
In the File menu, click Select Server… In the Connect -> Servers section of the mIRC Options window, select the correct server inside the Freenode folder, then click Edit In the Login Method dropdown, select SASL (/CAP) In the second Password box at the bottom of the window, enter your NickServ username, then a colon, then your NickServ password. For example, dax:hunter2 Click the OK button
Step3: Joining Channel
Following command to join the channel , best of luck
Kubecon Euope April 2021 session by Ildikó Váncsa (Open Infrastructure Foundation) – ildiko@openinfra.dev and colleague Gergely Csatári (Nokia) – gergely.csatari@nokia.com
When it comes to deployment of Cloud and Networking infrastructure at the Edge the requirements are quite different primarily steered by ruggedness and all different form factors that are expected at edge . E.g claiming a Cloud solution is good but how it will fit in to wall mount and on #Australia blue mountains is key architecture question that again in only 4U space . This require holistic analysis of cloud features with infrastructure mapping , as example with #Dell and #RedHat as follows
1. 3 node OCP cluster with shared management and workload nodes 2. Remote compute node support based on RT Kernel 3. Support hybrid workloads with CNV (Container native Virtualization) 4. DPDK and SRIOV for data Apps at the edge including 5G NPN 5. Local storage operator support 6. Keptn support for DevOps for Edge sites including support for workload placement and optimization 7. Tekton Pipelines CI/CD 8. Above all use of SDN through compute infrastructure avoiding use of standalone switches in Edge sites like for 8a. UPI using OVS 8b. IPI using OVN
Delivery of #Infrastructure like a #Cloud and value driven #SaaS model is something most Telco’s wanted to achieve for many years . Based on years of Telco Cloud deployments we can summarize biggest challenges for Cloud , 5G and Edge transformations as follows. 1. Traditional IaaS or PaaS models require a bigger Lag time 2. Telco existing Processes specially sourcing , RFX , Implementation and Operation are not well aligned with Cloud aspects 3. Different delivery model must be tested like one for NFVI readiness and other for Cloud and workloads 4. Infrastructure capacity analytics is not readily available forcing a Telco to procure new infrastructure when optimization of existing resources could be sufficient 5. Above all the delivery not match with Client business KPI’s and targets
1. Ecosystem and integrated Ecosystem is very important , this discussion is more important to solve as we will move to more #challenging and mostly non-standard #Edge sites 2. #Software acceleration takes priority on Hardware acceleration We must accelerate initiative like #NVIDIA#DPU where #DPU=#CPU + #GPU 3. With 100’s CNF carried over 1000’s services having 100,000’s of node/pod/route relationship the #manageability of clusters is critical two areas we must focus in #2021 are #Resourcetopology and #telemetry
To bring business value from automation the IP Networks Automation should be considered together with Cloud Automation. Following are the realistic targets of such E2E Automation that consider both domains with a E2E view through Service and E2E Service Orchestration
Targets for Real Automation
Below should be some real targets to achieve the Automation aspiration for a a carrier
Use case Automation (Specially target new revenue Streams)
Process automation
CI/CD in a Telco Environment all the way from Lab,PoC,Staging,Pre-Prod and Production
API exposure to 3rd party
Based on experience below are some key steps to achieve this goal
Steps for Real Automation
To covert targets to reality following are some real steps in sequence and in iterative manner
Align automation tools and approaches to ETSI ZSM architecture and enhance ML/AI use cases through ENI (Enhanced Network Intelligence frameworks)
Every real Telco is a brownfield so integration with existing OSS/BSS is a key
Business process must be automated e.g Jira , ServiceNow, #RedHat FUse ,AMQ
Each client need to define its standard architecture and tool framework , a level of standardization is necessary on OpenSource Tools
Project Phases to Achieve True Automation
Overall there are three phases to deliver such projects Phase1:Warmup Deliver the SBI I.M (Information models) including tools for automation like #Ansible and #Python etc
Phase2: Build Phase Orchestration and Policy enforcement is necessary to bring holistic view from both #Cloud and #Networking to build E2E Automation
As Linux is the defacto OS for innovation in the Datacenters sameway the OpenSHift is proving to be a Catalyst for both Enterprise and Telco’s Cloud transformation . In this blog i will like to share my experience with two environments one is minishift that is a home brew environment for developers and others based on Pre-existing infrastructure .
As you know Openshift is a cool platform as a part of these two modes it support a wide variety of deployment options including hosted platforms on
AWS
Google
Azure
IBM
However for hosted platforms we will use full installers with out any customization so this is simply not complex provided you must use only Redhat guide for deployment.
Avoid common Mistakes
As a pre requisite you must have a bastion host to be used as bootstrap node
Linux manifest NTP , registry ,key should be available while for Full installation the DNS is to be prepared before cloud installer kicks in .
Making ignition files on your own (Always use and generate manifest from installers)
FOr Pre-existing the Control plane is based on Core OS while workers can be RHel or COreOS while for full stack everything including workers must be based on CoreOS
Once started installation whole cluster must be spinned within 24hours otherwise you need to generate new keys before proceed as controller will stop ping as license keys have a 24hour validity
As per my experience most manifest for full stack installation is created by installers viz. Cluster Node instances , Cluster Networks and bootstrap nodes
Pain points in Openshift3 installation
Since most openshift installation is around complex Ansible Playbooks , roles and detailed Linux files configuration all the way from DNS , CSR etc so it was a dire need to make it simple and easy for customers and it is what RedHat has done by moving to Opinionated installation which make it simple to install with only high level information and later based on each environment the enterprise can scale as per needs for Day2 requirements , such a mode solves three fundamental issues
Installer customization needs (At least this was my experience in OCP3)
Full automation of environment
Implement CI/CD
Components of installation
There are two pieces you should know for OCP4 installation
Installer
Installers is a linux manifest coming from RedHat directly and need very less tuning and customization
Ignition Files
Ignition files are first bootstrap configs needed to configure both the bootstrap , control and compute nodes .If you have managed the Openstack platform before you know we need separate Kickstart and cloud-init files and in Ignition files process RedHat makes simple both steps . For details on Ignition process and cluster installation refer to nice stuff below
copy CDK in directory C:/users/Saad.Sheikh/minishift and in CMD go in that directory
minishift setup-cdk
It will create .minishift in your path C:/users/Saad.Sheikh
set MINISHIFT_USERNAME=snasrullah.c
minishift start –vm-driver virtualbox
Add the directory containing oc.exe to your PATH
FOR /f “tokens=*” %i IN (‘minishift oc-env’) DO @call %i
minishift stop
minishift start
Below message will come just ignore it and enjoy error: dial tcp 192.168.99.100:8443: connectex: A connection attempt failed because the connected party did not properly respond after a period of time, or established connection failed because connected host has failed to respond. – verify you have provided the correct host and port and that the server is currently running. Could not set oc CLI context for ‘minishift’ profile: Error during setting ‘minishift’ as active profile: Unable to login to cluster
To login as administrator: oc login -u system:admin
Openshift installation based on onprem hosting
This mode is also known as UPI (User provided infrastructure) and it has the following the key steps for OCP full installation
Step1: run the redhat installer
Step2: Based on manifests build the ignition files for the bootstrap nodes
Step3: The control node boots and fetches information from the bootstrap server
Step4: The etcd provisioned on control node scales to 3 nodes to build a 3 control nore HA cluster
Finally the bootstrap node is depleted and removed
Following is the scripts i used to spin my OCP cluster
1#@Reboot the machine bootstrap during reboot go to PXE and install CoreOS
2#openshift-install --dir=./ocp4upi
3@rmeove the bootstrap IP's entries from /etc/haproxy/haproxy.cfg
4# systemctl reload haproxy
5#set the kubeconfig ENV variables
6# export kubeconfig=~/ocp4upi/auth/kubeconfig
7# verify the installation
8# oc get pv
9# oc get nodes
10# oc get custeroperator
11#approve any CSR and certificates
12# oc get csr -o go-template='{{range.items}}{{if no .status}}{{.metadata .name}}{{""\n""}}{{end}} | xargs oc adm certificate approve
13#login to OCP cluster GUI using
https://localhost:8080
Do try it out and share your experience what you think about OCP4.6 installation .
Disclaimer: All commands and processes i validated in my home lab environment and you need tune and check your environment before apply as some tuning may be needed .
Latest deal of Dish US to build 5G Open RAN ,5G Core on Edge and Leverage OSS/BSS on AWS gives certain advantages to any Telco business ut what really in AWS or hyperscalers really attracting Telco’s here is what i understand
AWS new offering for EC2 based on Graviton2-based instances (64-bit Arm Neoverse cores) provide up to 40% better price-performance over comparable current-generation x86-based instances) and Amazon EKS to run CNF’s during periods of peak network use. Similarly AWS ML capabilities at the network edge to help improve service by predicting network congestion at specific locations and then automatically taking corrective actions to optimize performance.
AWS Local zones and AWS outpost .AWS Local zones are infrastructure deployment that places AWS compute, storage, database close to applications requiring single-digit millisecond latency, while AWS Outposts extend AWS infrastructure, services, APIs, and tools to virtually any on-premises facility.
Inherent ML and Automation .Leveraging existing AWS API’s and farmworks like Sagemaker will give great advantages for both automation and scale .
5G , Cloud ,Edge and Automation for Telecom, Applications and Enterprise 
