Learn more about a new Kubernetes operator in StarlingX 9.0 for Intel vRAN Boost accelerator.

The StarlingX 9.0 release includes a new Kubernetes Operator to manage and configure the integrated Intel vRAN Boost accelerator in 4th Gen Intel Xeon Scalable processors. In this blog post, you will learn about Intel vRAN Boost Kubernetes Operator functionality in StarlingX.

As communications service providers move from 4G to 5G networks, many telecom operators are developing virtualized Radio Access Network (vRAN) architecture for higher channel capacity and easier deployment of Edge based services and applications. vRAN solutions are ideally located to deliver low latency services with flexibility to increase or decrease capacity based on the volume of real time traffic and demand on the network with a great support from the operating system and underlying hardware platform.

Intel vRAN Boost is an integrated vRAN Accelerator in 4th Gen Intel Xeon Scalable processors to provide outstanding energy-efficient performance across networking use cases, including vRAN deployments.

A Kubernetes Operator for Intel vRAN Boost accelerator

Kubernetes Operator for Intel vRAN Boost accelerator provides the ability to orchestrate, configure and manage the Intel vRAN Boost integrated accelerator in latest 4th Generation Intel Xeon Scalable processors when deployed on a Kubernetes cluster(s). The Operator is backward compatible, it includes support for previous generations of Intel vRAN Accelerator ACC100 Adapter cards as well. The Operator is a state machine which configures the resources, monitors them, and acts autonomously based on the user interaction. The Operator can perform the functionality of

• Detecting and labeling the worker nodes which have accelerators within the Kubernetes cluster.
• Configuring the accelerators as per vRAN deployment requirements.
• Creating the Virtual Functions (VFs) for the accelerator(s).
• Maintaining VFs as Kubernetes resources and managing the resource allocations to vRAN applications.
• Providing user/admin interface access to the accelerator through Kubernetes Custom Resource (CRs) APIs.
• Managing the Accelerator resource in Secure boot environments as well.

Integration of Kubernetes Operator with StarlingX 9.0

The Kubernetes Operator is integrated in StarlingX as a system application. With the StarlingX Application Package Manager, the Intel vRAN Boost Kubernetes Operator application’s lifecycle can be managed, including managing overrides to the helm charts for controlling the operator behavior. The latest version of the Operator supported in StarlingX 9.0 is v2.9.0.

A StarlingX application package is a compressed tarball containing the following:

• metadata.yaml
• manifest.yaml
• FluxCD manifest files
• checksum.md5
• charts directory containing helm charts

The metadata.yaml file contains references to the application name, version, as well as references to StarlingX maintained docker images for the Kubernetes Operator.

The Kubernetes Operator application package is saved on the StarlingX system during installation, but not applied by default. When system administrators configure the StarlingX platform for vRAN application deployments, they can deploy the application by using system CLI commands.

Please refer to the detailed procedure for how to deploy and validate Kubernetes Operator for Intel vRAN Boost accelerator in the StarlingX documentation.

Conclusion

The integration of a new Kubernetes Operator for Intel vRAN Boost accelerator in StarlingX provides a ready-made solution for vRAN deployments based on the StarlingX distributed cloud platform and 4th Gen Intel Xeon Scalable processors with Intel vRAN Boost. System administrators can manage the configurability of Intel vRAN Boost accelerator through Kubernetes native CRD APIs and can also manage the accelerator’s resource allocation to the vRAN DU application workloads.

For the complete list of updates and new features in StarlingX 9.0, check out the release notes and the project documentation.

Visit the StarlingX website today for further information about the project, check out the code, or download the latest image to try out the new features. If you are already evaluating or using the software please fill out the user survey and help the community improve the project based on your feedback.

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