Introduction

Datang Mobile is a core subsidiary of the Datang Telecom Technology and Industry Group (more commonly referred to as he Datang Group), a large high-tech group of companies under the auspices of the State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission of the State Council (SASAC). As the developer of TD-SCDMA, a home-grown international 3G standard, Datang Mobile is actively engaged in the development of the associated core technologies and in the promotion of commercial applications. With the goal of delivering a communication engine with boundless possibilities, and with corporate values revolving around innovation, market orientation, integrity and responsibility, Datang Mobile is vigorously pursuing the development of TDD wireless communication and associated technologies and applications, with a particular emphasis on the convergence of TDD wireless communication solutions, the Internet of Things and mobile internet. Datang Mobile has a primary focus on boosting the commercialization of TD-SCDMA and associated TD-LTE technologies on both the domestic and international markets.

As one of the leading TD system equipment suppliers, Datang Mobile, in conjunction with its partners, currently has 30% of the China TD-SCDMA equipment market, providing high-quality TD network solutions and integrated services for mobile operators in more than 20 provinces. In addition, as CMCC is in the process of building a nationwide TD-SCDMA network, Datang Mobile is collaborating closely with China Mobile on more than 100 innovative projects, playing a pivotal role in the improvement of the TD-SCDMA system, the development of multi-scenario applications and continuous network optimization. Furthermore, Datang Mobile is preparing for the commercial deployment of the TD-LTE products and solutions it developed in a number of countries globally, and is implementing a global development strategy with major telecom operators throughout the world.

Challenge

5G draws on the mature SOA (Service Oriented Architecture) and MSA (Micro Service Architecture) in the IT industry, and proposes a compromise SBA (Service-Based Architecture). SBA balances between SOA and MSA. On the one hand, it avoids the huge service function set, which makes business change difficult. On the other hand, it avoids the fine division of service function set and leads to performance loss. Of course, 5G SBA still needs a set of micro-service architecture as the basis for in-depth adaptation development.

The communications industry is different from other industries, and C/C++ is widely used in development languages. Therefore, in the choice of microservices framework, we must first consider language support.

The standardization of network virtualization is advanced by ETSI NFV. At present, virtualization is still focused on VM-level virtualization, and in the future it will move toward containerized virtualization and eventually move toward cloud. The microservices framework chosen should have better compatibility with the infrastructure.

At the same time, operation and maintenance has become an increasingly important part of the information system. The 5G protocol update is fast and requires a more powerful automated operation and maintenance solution to ensure product quality after iteration.

Solution

TARS is one of the few open-source projects that supports multi-language, integrated operation and maintenance micro-service framework, which meets the requirements of Datang Mobile to support diverse development languages ​​in framework selection. The communication part is widely developed using C/C++, and the NF part of 5G can also be developed using JAVA.

TARS has technical solutions for VMs and containers, as well as physical machine deployments, making it adaptable to a variety of communication network deployments.

TARS, as a framework that Tencent has verified and is validated by Internet users, is the guarantee of users' confidence in its framework.

The 5G serviced interface technology stack defined by the 3GPP R15 standard is TCP+HTTP/2+JSON. TARS's integrated rapid json library provides excellent json serialization/deserialization tools. In the communication protocol, TARS can implement a plug-in way to add a new communication protocol.

Impact

The development team has 3/4G protocol development experience, skilled C/C++ developers, and can smoothly transition to protocol development under 5G under TARS. At the same time, 5G NF services can also be developed using the JAVA language. The development team has a certain flexibility, different NF services can be developed by different teams, and each team is free to choose the appropriate development language. Avoid the limitations of a particular development language after avoiding the use of a microservices framework.

The flexibility of the TARS framework communication plug-in is free to deal with the introduction of other protocols such as QUIC that may be used in the future 5G.

TARS provides a rich management API, and through the HTTP RESTFUL interface, it can realize management functions such as service release, service online and offline, and service upgrade. Based on the management API of TARS, Datang has implemented a web-lmt management console that satisfies the operational habits of telecom operation and maintenance. And combined with the CI system to achieve automated lifecycle management of services, build a continuous R&D environment for automated testing, and ensure product quality in the rapid iteration of 5G protocol development.

Datang Mobile and Tencent jointly build microservice platform

The technical implementation of 5G SBA will inevitably require a microservices framework. In the 5G network development, it is the self-developed closed source microservices framework or the community open source microservices framework. How to select multiple open source microservice frameworks. The above problems are the primary issues facing the development of 5G networks. Zhao Wei shared:

Choose open source

From the Linux operating system to openstack, open source software is becoming ubiquitous. In the wave of technological development, we embrace open source with an open attitude. Open source is the refinement and sharing of excellent code and architecture in the industry. On the shoulders of the “giant” of many excellent open source projects, the project development cost and development cycle have been reduced. In the process of using the open source architecture, we also self-satisfy and improve the application of the micro-service architecture in the IT field in the communications industry.

Select TARS

TARS is Tencent's ten-year application framework summary, which is the framework for the actual operation verification of Tencent Online Mass Application. The communications industry has an innate pursuit of performance and stability. TARS, as a framework that Tencent has verified and is validated by Internet users, is the guarantee of users' confidence in its framework. C/C++ is a widely used development language in the communications industry, while TARS supports multi-language development and supports multiple development languages ​​such as C++ and JAVA. Therefore, the development team has 3/4G protocol development experience, skilled C / C + + developers, under the TARS can smoothly transition to the protocol development under 5G. At the same time, using the TARS framework, the 5G NF service can also be developed using the JAVA language. The development team has a certain flexibility, different NF services can be developed by different teams, and each team is free to choose the appropriate development language. Avoid the limitations of a particular development language after avoiding the use of a microservices framework.

Practice TARS

The 5G serviced interface technology stack defined by the 3GPP R15 standard is TCP+HTTP/2+JSON. TARS's integrated Tencent rapid json library provides excellent json serialization/deserialization tools. In the communication protocol, TARS can implement a plug-in way to add a new communication protocol. Earlier versions of TARS, such as v1.1.0, did not support the HTTP2 protocol. However, through the plug-in method, TARS implements the HTTP/2 protocol in a short period of time. Through the efforts of Datang and Tencent, the HTTP/2 protocol has been verified in product testing, and the HTTP/2 function will be officially released in the TARS open source version. The flexibility of the TARS framework communication plug-in is free to deal with the introduction of other protocols such as QUIC that may be used in the future 5G.

The standardization of network virtualization is advanced by ETSI NFV. At present, virtualization is still focused on VM-level virtualization, and in the future it will move toward containerized virtualization and eventually move toward cloud. TARS has technical solutions for VMs and containers, as well as physical machine deployments, making it adaptable to a variety of communication network deployments.

Operation and maintenance has become an increasingly important part of the information system. TARS provides a rich management API, and through the HTTP RESTFUL interface, it can realize management functions such as service release, service online and offline, and service upgrade. Based on the management API of TARS, Datang has implemented a web-lmt management console that satisfies the operational habits of telecom operation and maintenance. And combined with the CI system to achieve automated lifecycle management of services, build a continuous R&D environment for automated testing, and ensure product quality in the rapid iteration of 5G protocol development. In the future, according to the 5G network operation and maintenance requirements, Datang and Tencent will jointly launch a richer TARS management API interface.