Non-RT RIC Information Coordination Service

Information Coordination Service

The Information Coordination Service (ICS) is a generic service that maintains data subscriptions. Its main purpose is to decouple data consumers and data producers in a multi vendor environment. A data consumer does not need to know anything about the producers of the data.

This product is a part of NONRTRIC.

The following terms are used:

  • Data Consumer, is a subscriber of data. Subscription is done by creating an “Information Job”. A data consumer can for instance be an R-App (using the R1 API) or a NearRT-RIC consuming Enrichment Information (and uses the A1-EI API provided by this service).

  • Information Type, is a type of information. This defines an interface between consumers and producers. Each information type defines which parameters can be used for creating an information job. These parameters are defined by a Json schema connected to the Information Type. These parameters may for instance include:

    • Parameters related to data delivery (for instance a callback URL if REST is used or a Kafka stream). These are different for different delivery protocols.

    • Filtering or other information for data selection.

    • Periodicy

    • Other info used for aggregation

  • Data Producer is a producer of data. A producer will get notified about all information jobs of its supported types. This also means that filtering is done at the producer (ideally at the source of the data). A data producer can for instance be an R-App.

One information type can be supported by zero to many data producers and can be subscribed to by zero to many data consumers. For instance there can be two data producers for a type of data; one from one vendor (handling a part of the network) and another from another vendor. A data consumer is agnostic about this.

_images/Architecture.png

Information Jobs and types are stored persistently by ICS in a local database. This can be either using Amazon S3 - Cloud Object Storage or file system.

To restrict which data that can be consumed by by whom there is support for finegrained access control. When data subscriptions/jobs are modified or read, an access check can be performed. ICS can be configured to call an external authorizer. This can be for instance Open Policy Agent (OPA) which can grant or deny accesses based on an access token (JWT) used by the calling data consumer. In addition to this the information type, accesstype (read/write) and all type specific parameters can be used by access rules.

The URL to the authorization component is defined in the application.yaml file and the call invoked to by ICS is described in API documentation.

Summary of principles

  • ICS provides APIs for control of data subscriptions, but is not involved in the delivery of data. This means that any delivery protocol can be used.

  • Data for one Information type can be produced by many producers from different vendors.

  • Data filtering is done at the producer.

  • A Data Consumer can create a data subscription (Information Job) regardless of the status of the data producers. The producers can come and go without any need for the Data Consumer to take any action. A subscription indicates the need for a type of data and the system should do its best to fulfill this.

Example

_images/Example.png

In the example, there is one subscription and the type of data is supported by two producers. That means that both producers are aware of the information job and will delver data directly to the subscriber.

So a typical sequence is that:

  • An Information Type is registered.

  • Producers of the Information Types are registered

  • A Consumer creates an Information Job of the type and supplies the type specific parameters for data delivery and filtering etc.

  • The producers gets notified of the job and will start producing data.

If a new producer is started, it will register itself and will get notified of all jobs of its supported types.

Implementation

Implemented as a Java Spring Boot application.

Developer Guide

This document provides a quickstart for developers of the Non-RT RIC Information Coordinator Service.

Additional developer guides are available on the O-RAN SC NONRTRIC Developer wiki.

The Information Coordinator Service is a Java 11 web application built using the Spring Framework. Using Spring Boot dependencies, it runs as a standalone application.

Its main functionality is to act as a data subscription broker and to decouple data producer from data consumers.

See the ./config/README file in the information-coordinator-service directory Gerrit repo on how to create and setup the certificates and private keys needed for HTTPS.

Start standalone

The project uses Maven. To start the Information Coordinator Service as a freestanding application, run the following command in the information-coordinator-service directory:

mvn spring-boot:run

There are a few files that needs to be available to run. These are referred to from the application.yaml file. The following properties have to be modified:

  • server.ssl.key-store=./config/keystore.jks

  • app.webclient.trust-store=./config/truststore.jks

  • app.vardata-directory=./target

Start in Docker

To build and deploy the Information Coordinator Service, go to the “information-coordinator-service” folder and run the following command:

mvn clean install

Then start the container by running the following command:

docker run nonrtric-information-coordinator-service

Kubernetes deployment

Non-RT RIC can be also deployed in a Kubernetes cluster, it/dep repository. hosts deployment and integration artifacts. Instructions and helm charts to deploy the Non-RT-RIC functions in the OSC NONRTRIC integrated test environment can be found in the ./nonrtric directory.

For more information on installation of NonRT-RIC in Kubernetes, see Deploy NONRTRIC in Kubernetes.

For more information see Integration and Testing documentation in the O-RAN-SC.

API-Docs

Here we describe the API to access the Non-RT RIC Information Coordination Service.

Information Coordinator Service

See A1 Information Information Coordination Service API for full details of the API.

The API is also described in Swagger-JSON and YAML:

API name

swagger-icon

yaml-icon

A1 Information Coordination Service API

link

link

Installation Guide

Abstract

This document describes how to install the Non-RT RIC components, their dependencies and required system resources.

Software Installation and Deployment

Install with Docker

Docker compose files are provided, in the “docker-compose” folder, to install the components. Run the following command to start the components:

docker-compose -f docker-compose.yaml
  -f policy-service/docker-compose.yaml
  -f ics/docker-compose.yaml

The example above is just an example to start some of the components. For more information on running and configuring the functions can be found in the README file in the “docker-compose” folder, and on the wiki page

Install with Helm

Helm charts and an example recipe are provided in the it/dep repo, under “nonrtric”. By modifying the variables named “installXXX” in the beginning of the example recipe file, which components that will be installed can be controlled. Then the components can be installed and started by running the following command:

bin/deploy-nonrtric -f nonrtric/RECIPE_EXAMPLE/example_recipe.yaml

Release-Notes

This document provides the release notes for the release of the Non-RT RIC Information Coordination Service.

Version history Information Coordinator Service

Date

Ver.

Author

Comment

2020-12-03

1.0.0

Henrik Andersson

Cherry Release

2021-06-23

1.1.0

Henrik Andersson

D Release

2021-12-13

1.2.0

Henrik Andersson

E Release Renamed and minor improvements

2022-02-07

1.2.1

Henrik Andersson

E Maintenance Release Non root user in Docker

2022-06-28

1.3.0

Henrik Andersson

F Release

2022-08-25

1.3.1

Patrik Buhr

F Maintenance Release

2022-12-12

1.4.0

Henrik Andersson

G Release

2023-02-10

1.4.1

Yennifer Chacon

G Maintenance Release

Release Data

Cherry

Project

Non-RT RIC

Repo/commit-ID

nonrtric/90ce16238dd6970153e1c0fbddb15e32c68c504f

Release designation

Cherry

Release date

2020-12-03

Purpose of the delivery

Introduction of Enrichment Service Coordinator

D

Project

Non-RT RIC

Repo/commit-ID

nonrtric/dd3ebfd784e96919a00ddd745826f8a8e074c66f

Release designation

D

Release date

2021-06-23

Purpose of the delivery

Improvements

D Maintenance

Project

Non-RT RIC

Repo/commit-ID

nonrtric/973ae56894fb29a929fba9e344cae42e7607087b

Release designation

D

Release date

2021-08-10

Purpose of the delivery

Minor bug fixes

E Release

Project

Non-RT RIC

Repo/commit-ID

nonrtric/b472c167413a55a42fc7bfa08d2138f967a204fb

Release designation

E

Release date

2021-12-13

Purpose of the delivery

Improvements and renaming.

E Maintenance Release

Project

Non-RT RIC

Repo/commit-ID

nonrtric/4df1f9ca4cd1ebc21e0c5ea57bcb0b7ef096d067

Release designation

E

Release date

2022-02-09

Purpose of the delivery

Improvements and bug fixes

F Release

Project

Non-RT RIC Information Coordinator Service

Repo/commit-ID

nonrtric/plt/informationcoordinatorservice/ 9d9519c5d9de072aa6676ce83042870a9fb8aec0

Release designation

F

Release date

2022-06-28

Purpose of the delivery

Moved to separate repo. Minor improvements

F Maintenance Release

Project

Non-RT RIC Information Coordinator Service

Repo/commit-ID

nonrtric/plt/informationcoordinatorservice/ 8b580aa39781ea7a05062aec76e09cc161bc59f2

Release designation

F

Release date

2022-08-25

Purpose of the delivery

Minor improvements

G Release

Project

Non-RT RIC Information Coordinator Service

Repo/commit-ID

nonrtric/plt/informationcoordinatorservice/ a18d40cef8ec6a2b709f3f280a6017eca06d5f92

Release designation

G

Release date

2022-12-12

Purpose of the delivery

Improved logging, NBI feature, S3 storage, fine grained authorization

G Maintenance Release

Project

Non-RT RIC Information Coordinator Service

Repo/commit-ID

nonrtric/plt/informationcoordinatorservice/ 88d81a5b7d15e68bbb2e0ea7c05203bfc1afd11f

Release designation

G

Release date

2023-02-10

Purpose of the delivery

Minor improvements