Subscriber Microservices Infrastructure Architecture

The Ultra Cloud Core Subscriber Microservices Infrastructure (SMI) is a layered stack of cloud technologies that enable the rapid deployment of, and seamless life cycle operations for microservices-based applications.

The SMI stack consists of the following:

  • SMI Cluster Manager — Creates the Kubernetes (K8s) cluster, creates the software repository, and provides ongoing Life Cycle Management (LCM) for the cluster including deployment, upgrades, and expansion.

    Note

    The SMI Cluster Manager can install all SMI based applications (including the SMI Cluster Manager) in a Day-0 manner. For Day-1 configurations, you can utilize the deployed application Ops Center.

    The SMI Cluster Manager supports the following platforms:

    • VMware — The Cluster Manager deploys the base images using the vSphere APIs.

    • Bare Metal — The Cluster Manager configures:

      • UCS-C server based hosts using Cisco Integrated Management Controller (CIMC) APIs.

    • Manual — The Cluster Manager allows other systems (NSO/ESC) to provision the base image and configure the K8s Cluster.

  • Kubernetes Management — Includes the K8s control plane and etcd functions which provide LCM for the cNF applications deployed in the cluster as well as provides cluster health monitoring and resources scheduling.

  • Common Execution Environment (CEE) — Provides common utilities and OAM functionalities for Cisco cNFs and applications, including licensing and entitlement functions, configuration management, telemetry and alarm visualization, logging management, and troubleshooting utilities. Additionally, it provides consistent interaction and experience for all customer touch points and integration points in relation to these tools and deployed applications.

  • Common Data Layer (CDL) — Provides a high performance, low latency, stateful data store, designed specifically for 5G and subscriber applications. This next generation data store offers HA in local or geo-redundant deployments.

  • Service Mesh — Provides sophisticated message routing between application containers, enabling managed interconnectivity, additional security, and the ability to deploy new code and new configurations in low risk manner.

  • NF/Application Worker nodes — The containers that comprise an NF application pod.

  • NF/Application Endpoints (EPs) – The NF's/application's interfaces to other entities on the network.

  • Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) — SMI provides various APIs for deployment, configuration, and management automation.

  • Ops Center — The SMI run time environment, as well as each Cisco cloud native application, includes an innovative management interface called Ops Center. This Netconf/Restconf interface, based on Yang schema, enables all configurations for SMI and Cisco cloud native applications, to be automated or managed directly through a CLI.

Figure 1 depicts how these components interconnect to comprise a microservice-based NF/application.

SMI Components