Ebpf Summit, EBPF and Kubernetes constructed core network?Introducing Bell Canada session

From the EBPF SUMMIT 2021, which was held on August 18 and 19, 2021, introduces sessions by the technical manager of Bell Canada, the largest telecommunications company in Canada.This is a session entitled "Why is Ebpf Changing the Teleco Networking Space?"

Video: Ebpf Summit 2021 -Day 2

I was in charge of Bell Canada's technical director Daniel Bernier.

Bernier holding a session

Bernier first started explaining by reconfirming the situation in the telecom industry.The appearance of 5G requires a cloud native and hyper-scale network infrastructure, and the Over-the-Top service is mainly operated by cloud-based systems, so it needs to be transition to the cloud.He said.In addition to the scale, dispersion, and the use of edges, the Internet services themselves are commodity, but the quality they want is increasing year by year.

Changes in the environment surrounding the telecom industry

And the answer is that IETF can use EBPF on the end edge using the architecture diagram of the APN (Application-Aware Network) proposed?That is Bernier's opinion.

Proposal to use ebpf for APN edges

Reading the document of the link on this slide may understand a more detailed background.

APN: Application-Aware Networking (APN)

Panrg: PATH AWARE Networking RG (Panrg)

In addition to the observertility that EBPF is most effective, it introduces the implementation of Inband-Telemetry on EBPF.

Introducing the idea of implementing Inband-Telemetry on ebpf

INBAND-TELEMETRY site developed by intel: Host-Int* for Packet-Telemetry

The figure on the left side of this slide is linked to the page of the P4, but the link is the source code, so it is abstracted.By the way, P4 is an abbreviation of Programming Protocol-Independent Packet Processors, and is a Domain Specific Language for programming data plain such as packet processing in hardware for networks.

In the next slide, I introduced the idea of making the network based on a Kubernetes based while showing the composition diagram of a network with Kubernetes core.

Network configuration based on Kubernetes, Cilium, Ebpf

It seems that CILIUM works as a control plane here and EBPF operates as a virtual router in individual Pods.

The next slide describes how the functions implemented in physical hardware have changed as they proceed to virtualization and container.

From physics to virtualization, and container

In fact, we introduce an example of actually implementing packet processing at high speed in the kernel using EBPF for a 5G network.

5g UPF using ebpf/XDP

What happens if the network function so far has shifted to a container base instead of a virtual machine base, and the data plane can be processed inside the kernel using EBPF from the user space?It is this slide that expresses.

What if I implemented the data plane in EBPF?The story of the assumption

In the last slide, the session is introduced as an example of a more future figure that will be implemented from smartphones to automobiles, home servers, etc., and will appear on the Internet through the access points of telecom operators.Is over.

Figure of EBPF Every Wear assumed by Bell Canada

Speaking of telecom operators, it is known that they are investing in OpenStack as a virtual infrastructure, but here what do you do with data plain when moving from OpenStack to a container base?It seems that one answer has been shown about the question.However, there are many issues, such as the migration method, the development method of network functions, and the integration of existing Observer Building tools.I would like to pay attention to whether a telecom business operator other than Bell Canada will follow or go to a container by choosing another path.

CILIUM, which is a CNI -based plug -in based on EBPF, is 1.The 10 version has been released, and it looks like it is evolving steadily.

Cilium 1.10: Wireguard, BGP Support, Egress IP Gateway, New Cilium Cli, XDP Load Balancer, Alibaba Cloud Integration And More

How does Cilium replace Kube-PROXY?I would like to refer to Kubecon Na videos held in San Diego in 2019.

Reference: LiberaTing Kubernetes from Kube -PROXY and IPTABLES -Martynas Pumputis, Cilium