This whitepaper is for historical reference only. Some content might be outdated and some links might not be available.
Domain Management
Domain management is undergoing a shift towards a more open approach to reduce network
complexity, enable CSPs to either forego domain managers or evolve into open domain managers,
and have a multi-vendors approach to domain management. Domain management on AWS helps you
reduce the size of your OSS stack, and helps you eliminate infrastructure complexity
associated with the operations of domain managers (per NFx, per vendor, and for a given
capacity).
The following reference architecture outlines an example domain management implementation
leveraging AWS Outposts for functions requiring low-latency budget. AWS Regions are leveraged
for mediation and domain-specific applications that enable engineering, operations, and
planning groups to efficiently perform their tasks.
Amazon S3 provides a scalable solution to host network configuration exports and mediate
performance data, providing you with the control to apply Life Cycle Management (LCM) policies
that are specific to your needs. Amazon Elastic File System (EFS) provides you with scalable and elastic file
storage. You can mount EFS on your on-premise legacy OSS systems using standard Linux commands
for mounting a file system via the NFSv4.1 protocol. This enables you to take advantage of the
AWS Cloud, even for legacy systems, and enables CSPs to move away from complex and costly
hardware expansions.
Similarly, AWS enables CSPs (and DSPs) to migrate to cloud databases using services
such as the AWS Schema Conversion
Tool (SCT) and AWS Database Migration Service (DMS), providing
you with the tools to automate schema conversion and data movement. The process of developing
APIs is simplified by AWS API Gateway to expose
domain management functions and build ones that spawn domains, NFx, and technologies.
Amazon EKS provides you with both Kubernetes namespace
capabilities and AWS Auto-Scaling group to
reduce infrastructure costs of domain management. CSPs and DSPs can run domain-specific as
well as multi-domain domain managers on different namespaces, simplifying their operations. By
separating domain managers across namespace and via role-based access control integration with
AWS IAM, it’s possible to control
per-domain-level access to the Kubernetes API for compute-level isolation between domains.
Further networking and storage-level isolation is also possible via network policies and
service mesh, and via volume-defined, per-storage classes. This enables CSPs and DSPs to
eliminate the infrastructure complexity of on-premise domain managers, allowing them to take
advantage of the AWS Cloud benefits such as elasticity.
AWS services such as Amazon CloudWatch (CloudWatch)
and Kinesis can be leveraged to manage OAM data from traditional network elements, given those
elements are running on Linux. For example, CloudWatch agents can be installed on an NFx to collect
standard metrics such as CPU utilization, as well as process custom metrics using StatsD or
collectd protocols. The Kinesis Client Library
(KCL) provides an easy-to-use programming model for processing data. This enables the
processing of real-time configuration events and alarm events from NFx. With Prometheus Server
Grafana Agent, you can also collect metrics from NFx, which provides Domain Manager with the
ability to expose a real-time dashboard for analysis and view of the network it manages.
AWS Systems Manager provides you with the
capability to automate operational tasks across on-premise NFx as well as towards legacy OSS
systems. Operators and ISVs can leverage System Manager Agent (SSM Agent) to apply security
patches, create automated responses, etc.
The proposed architecture enables you to migrate legacy domain managers from on-premise
to AWS Cloud, and provides you with a path to leverage AWS services natively for OAM data.
