MEC Applications
Orchestration

Integration of Multi Access-Edge Computing (MEC) applications with Virtual Network Functions (VNF) Orchestration

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What is our work?

Design and develop a MEC Orchestrator that translates MEC applications into Network Function Virtualizations (NFV's)

Create a Operations Support System (OSS) and a CFS Portal

Create and deploy a showcase-purpose MEC application

Milestones

Frontend

01

Wireframes and Project Structure

Plan of a well structured design of the pages necessary for our CFS Portal, based on the OSM's aesthetics

02

Pages Development

Development of the designed pages using React.js (components and interactions between them)

03

API Integration and Authentication

Integration of the API endpoints with our interface accordingly, along with user authentication

Object Detection App

01

Client/Server Integration

Development of a client-server application for object detection using YOLOv3 algorithm

02

Containerization and Publish

Docker containerization and publishment of the app on a K3s Cluster

03

Onboarding as CNF

Onboard of the Object Detection App (MEC App) as a Containerized Network Function

Backend

01

Endpoints and REST Server

Development of a REST Server to request OSM's services via endpoint calling. Endpoints based on OSM's "needs" using cherrypy

02

OSS-MEAO connectivity

Implementation of the OSS and MEAO (without the MEC App logic), as well as communication between both using Kafka and MongoDB based interaction

03

MEC App Yang Model and MEAO

Build of the MEC App YANG Model, based on ETSI'S documentation, followed by the implementation of MEAO's translation capabilities

Our Team

Afonso Castanheta

Backend

Francisco Cardita

Frontend

Henrique Cruz

Backend

Luís Oliveira

Frontend

Pedro Ferreira

Backend

Samuel Teixeira

Backend

Related

What is Multi Access-Edge Computing (MEC)?

Multi-access Edge Computing is a technology where network services, such as cloud services, are placed in a network edge, closer to the end user.
This approach results in low latency, with the possibility of increasing bandwidth, reduced network congestion, real-time operations and analytics, and others.

What Technologies were used?

Frontend: React.js, TypeScript
Backend: Python, MongoDB, Kafka, YANG, osmclient library
Infrastructure: K3s, Docker
Project Management: Github, Github Projects

Benefits of MEC through NFV

The lack of standardization is making it difficult to be implemented worldwide. Translation of MEC Apps to Network Function Virtualization (NFV) offers a promising solution, with advantages such as less power consumption and no dedicated hardware.
Open Source MANO (OSM) emerges as a suitable option for NFV-based MEC deployment, aligning with ETSI's standardization efforts.

What is Open Source MANO (OSM)?

Open Source MANO (OSM) is an ETSI hosted project for creation and management/orchestration of Network Functions Virtualizations (NFV's).
NFV's consist in virtualized network hardware , such as routers or firewalls

How did we manage our tasks?

We had weekly team meetings to discuss our progress and to make decisions.
The use of Github Projects made it possible for us to describe our tasks, dividing them into topics and assigning them to the team members.

Problems addressed with our system

The real-world applications of our system include optimizing network resources, enhancing edge computing capabilities for various industries such as healthcare, transportation, and smart cities, and enabling low-latency services like augmented reality and IoT.
Additionally, our system addresses challenges such as network congestion, data privacy concerns, and the need for efficient resource allocation in edge computing environments.

Some useful links

Github repository of the project

Click Here

Open Source MANO's Website

Click Here

Special Thanks

We give a special thanks to Pedro Escaleira for his time and dedication to teach us to the advanced topics taught with this project.

We also want to thank Diogo Magalhães for creating the CNF for our project.

Finally, we want to thank Pedro Pereira for making the OSM's node metrics available for us