Systems, methods, and media for radio-based private networks

Abstract

Various embodiments of an interface for creating a radio-based private network are disclosed. In one embodiment, a request to create a radio-based private network for a customer is received via an interface. The request indicates a number of wireless devices to be connected to the radio-based private network. A number of radio units to serve the radio-based private network is determined based at least in part on the number of wireless devices. The radio units are preconfigured to implement a radio access network for the radio-based private network. Delivery of the preconfigured radio units to the customer is initiated. Resources in a cloud provider network are provisioned to serve as a core network for the radio-based private network.

Description

[0001] CROSS-REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS

[0002] This application claims priority to and the benefit of co-pending U.S. Patent Application No. 17 / 360,143, filed on June 28, 2021, entitled “INTERFACES FOR CREATING RADIO-BASED PRIVATE NETWORKS,” which is incorporated by reference as if fully set forth herein. Background Art

[0003] 5G is the fifth generation technology standard for broadband cellular networks, and is planned to eventually replace the fourth generation (4G) standard of Long Term Evolution (LTE). 5G technology will greatly increase bandwidth, thereby expanding the cellular market beyond smartphones to provide last-mile connectivity for desktops, set-top boxes, laptops, Internet of Things (IoT) devices, etc. Some 5G cells may use spectrum similar to 4G, while other 5G cells may use spectrum in the millimeter wave band. Millimeter wave band cells cover a relatively small area, but have much higher throughput than 4G. BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

[0004] Many aspects of the present disclosure may be better understood with reference to the following drawings. The components in the drawings are not necessarily drawn to scale, with emphasis placed on clearly illustrating the principles of the present disclosure. In addition, the same reference numerals in the drawings designate corresponding parts throughout the multiple views.

[0005] Figure 1A is a diagram of an example of a communication network deployed and managed according to various embodiments of the present disclosure.

[0006] Figure 1B is an example of a radio-based private network used on an organizational campus with multiple buildings and deployed according to various embodiments of the present disclosure.

[0007] Figure 2A An example of a networked environment including a cloud provider network and further including various provider underlying extensions of the cloud provider network according to some embodiments of the present disclosure is shown. Figure 1A Used in various locations within a communications network.

[0008] Figure 2B Depicted Figure 1A Example of cellularization and geographical distribution of communication networks.

[0009] Figure 3A According to some embodiments of the present disclosure Figure 2A An example of a networking environment that includes geographically dispersed provider infrastructure extensions.

[0010] Figure 3B Depicted is a state diagram for the creation and management of a radio-based private network.

[0011] Figure 4 According to various embodiments of the present disclosure Figure 2A A schematic block diagram of a networking environment.

[0012] Figure 5 and Figure 6 is a diagram showing various embodiments according to the present disclosure as Figure 4 A flow chart of an example of functions implemented by portions of a radio-based dedicated network management service and a radio unit management service executed in a computing environment in a networking environment of the present invention.

[0013] Figure 7 According to various embodiments of the present disclosure, Figure 4 A schematic block diagram of an example illustration of a computing environment employed in a networking environment. DETAILED DESCRIPTION

[0014] The present disclosure relates to interfaces that facilitate the automatic deployment and modification of radio-based private networks (such as 4G and 5G radio access networks) or parts of such radio-based networks and associated core networks using cloud provider network infrastructure. Such interfaces may include user interfaces and / or application programming interfaces (APIs). Previous radio-based network deployments relied on manual deployment and configuration at each step of the process. This has proven to be extremely time-consuming and expensive. In addition, in previous generations, software was inherently associated with vendor-specific hardware, preventing customers from deploying alternative software. In contrast, for 5G, the hardware is decoupled from the software stack, which allows greater flexibility and allows components of radio-based networks to be executed on cloud provider infrastructure. Using a cloud distribution model for radio-based networks (such as 5G networks) can facilitate the processing of network traffic from hundreds to billions of connected devices and computationally intensive applications, while delivering faster, lower latency, and greater capacity than other types of networks.

[0015] Historically, enterprises have had to choose between performance and price when evaluating their enterprise connectivity solutions. Cellular networks can provide high performance, good indoor and outdoor coverage, and advanced quality of service (QoS) connectivity features, but dedicated cellular networks can be expensive and complex to manage. While Ethernet and Wi-Fi require less upfront investment and are easier to manage, enterprises often find that they are less reliable, require a lot of work to get the best coverage, and do not provide QoS features such as guaranteed bit rate, latency, and reliability.

[0016] The disclosed radio-based private network service can provide enterprises with the best of both worlds - the performance, coverage and QoS of carrier-grade cellular networks, and the simplicity and cost of deployment and operation associated with Wi-Fi. The disclosed service can provide suitable hardware in different form factors, which enterprises can deploy to their sites and integrate with software that runs the entire network (from small cell sites to Internet breakout points). Enterprises can freely deploy various 5G devices and sensors throughout the enterprise (factory floors, warehouses, halls, and communication centers) and manage these devices, register users and assign QoS through a management console. With the disclosed technology, customers can allocate constant bit rate throughput to all their devices (such as cameras, sensors or IoT devices), provide reliable low-latency connections for devices running on the factory floor, and allocate broadband connections to all handheld devices. The disclosed service can manage all the software required to provide connections that meet specified constraints and requirements. This enables a whole new set of applications with strict QoS or high IoT device density requirements that traditionally cannot run on Wi-Fi networks.

[0017] The disclosed service supports multiple deployment scenarios. In a cloud-only deployment, the service can provide a small radio cell that an enterprise customer can place on site, while the network functions and other network software run in the nearest cloud provider availability zone or edge location (or one of several nearest cloud provider availability zones or edge locations). For enterprises that want to deploy on-premises, the disclosed service provides cloud provider hardware, such as the underlying extensions described in this article. In this mode, the network and applications remain within the enterprise, enabling the enterprise to securely store and process data that needs to remain locally (for example, for regulatory compliance, security considerations, etc.). In addition, the disclosed service can allow any computing and storage that is not used to run a radio-based network to be used to run any local workload via the same API that customers can use to run workloads in traditional cloud provider areas. Advantageously, because of this, enterprises do not have to worry about oversizing and wasting capacity, because the service will enable any excess capacity to be used for local processing and will provision new hardware and software as network needs change. In addition, the disclosed service can provide application development APIs that expose and manage 5G capabilities such as QoS, enabling customers to build applications that can fully utilize the latency and bandwidth capabilities of their network without having to understand the details of the network.

[0018] In addition, the disclosed service can provide a dedicated zone to run local applications within the cloud provider network. The dedicated zone can be connected to a wider regional zone and become an effective part of it, and allow customers to manage the dedicated zone using the same API and tools used in the cloud provider network. Like the availability zone, a virtual private network subnet can be assigned to the dedicated zone. The API can be used to create subnets and assign them to all zones that the customer wants to use, including dedicated zones and other existing zones. The management console can provide a simplified process for creating a dedicated zone. Virtual machine instances and containers can be launched in a dedicated zone, just like in a regional zone. Customers can configure network gateways to define routes, assign IP addresses, set up network address translation (NAT), etc. Automatic scaling can be used to scale the capacity of virtual machine instances or containers according to needs in the dedicated zone. The same management and authentication API of the cloud provider network can be used in the dedicated zone. In some cases, since cloud services available in regional zones can be accessed remotely from the dedicated zone through a secure connection, these cloud services can be accessed without upgrading or modifying local deployments.

[0019] Various embodiments of the present disclosure introduce methods that allow customers to order and deploy radio-based private networks and associated core networks in an automated manner. Customers may include enterprises and organizations that wish to establish radio-based networks for internal use (e.g., private 5G networks). Through various user interfaces or APIs, customers can specify their network plans or requirements (e.g., physical site layouts and device / application types and quantities), and can automatically determine and pre-configure various components required to implement radio-based private networks for customers. Hardware such as antennas, radios, and computer servers can be pre-configured for the customer's radio-based private network and shipped to the customer. The process of installing pre-configured hardware is largely plug-and-play, and the radio-based private network can be activated through a user interface or API. In addition to deploying a radio-based private network (such as all or part of a new radio access network), various embodiments of the present disclosure can facilitate the modification and management of radio-based private networks, including the deployment of pre-configured equipment for additional cells and the allocation of QoS constraints for specific devices or applications on its radio-based private network.

[0020] Various embodiments of the present disclosure may also introduce the concepts of elasticity and utility computing from a cloud computing model to a radio-based private network and an associated core network. For example, the disclosed technology may run core and radio access network functions and associated control plane management functions on a cloud provider infrastructure, thereby creating a cloud-native core network and / or a cloud-native radio access network (RAN). In some embodiments, such core and RAN network functions may be based on the Third Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) specification. By providing a cloud-native radio-based network, customers can dynamically scale their radio-based private network based on utilization, latency requirements, and / or other factors. In some cases, the hardware sent to the customer includes sufficient capacity to run programs for operating and managing the radio-based network and other workloads of the customer (e.g., their applications), so that any capacity not used for the radio-based network can be accessed to run workloads under the utility computing model. Advantageously, the customer's radio-based network can be expanded to this excess capacity as needed, for example, even before new physical hardware is provisioned for the customer, allowing the hardware usage requirements of the radio-based network to be increased. Customers can also configure thresholds to receive alerts related to radio-based network usage and excess capacity usage of their provisioned infrastructure to more effectively manage the provisioning of new infrastructure or de-provisioning of existing infrastructure based on their dynamic network and workload requirements.

[0021] Those skilled in the art will appreciate from this disclosure that certain embodiments may be able to achieve certain advantages, including some or all of the following: (1) improving the user experience by allowing organizations to deploy their own radio-based private networks in a highly automated plug-and-play manner; (2) increasing the flexibility of computer systems by allowing computing hardware previously dedicated to network functions of radio-based networks and associated core networks to be reused for other applications; (3) increasing the flexibility of computer systems by allowing computing hardware previously dedicated to a first radio-based private network to be automatically reused for a second radio-based private network (or reused between RAN and core network functions of the same radio-based network as needed); (4) improving user deployment of radio-based private networks by pre-configuring antennas, radios, and other hardware. experience, thereby providing a plug-and-play installation experience; (5) improving the performance of radio-based private networks by optimizing cell deployment and spectrum utilization; (6) improving the performance and management of radio-based networks by monitoring performance metrics and adding, removing, and reconfiguring cells as needed to maintain acceptable performance; (7) improving the scalability and overall performance of radio-based private networks by shifting network functions previously provided by proprietary hardware to virtual machine instances operated by elastic cloud computing providers under a utility computing model; (8) reducing latency in radio-based private networks by shifting network functions to virtual machine instances executed on the cloud service provider's computing devices at the cell site; (9) improving the security of radio-based private networks by configuring network function workloads to remain at the customer's premises; and so on.

[0022] One of the benefits of the present disclosure is the ability to deploy and link network functions together to deliver end-to-end services that meet specified constraints and requirements. According to the present disclosure, network functions organized into microservices work together to provide end-to-end connectivity. One set of network functions is part of the radio network, running in cellular towers and performing conversion of wireless signals to IP. Other network functions run in large data centers, execute business logic related to subscribers and route IP traffic to the Internet and back. For applications that use new 5G features (such as low-latency communications and reserved bandwidth), these two types of network functions need to work together to properly schedule and reserve wireless spectrum, and perform real-time computing and data processing. The currently disclosed technology provides edge positioning hardware (as further described below), which is integrated with network functions that run across the entire network from cell sites to Internet breakout points, and orchestrates network functions to meet the required quality of service (QoS) constraints. This enables a new set of applications with strict QoS requirements, from factory-based Internet of Things (IoT) to augmented reality (AR), virtual reality (VR), game streaming, and autonomous navigation support for connected vehicles, which were previously impossible to run on mobile networks.

[0023] The described "Elastic 5G" service provides and manages all the hardware, software, and network functions required to build a network. In some embodiments, the network functions may be developed and managed by a cloud service provider, however, the described control plane may manage network functions from a range of providers such that customers can use a single set of APIs to call and manage their choice of network functions on the cloud infrastructure. The Elastic 5G service beneficially automates the creation of an end-to-end 5G network from hardware to network functions, thereby reducing the time to deploy the network and the operational costs of operating the network. By providing an API that exposes network capabilities, the exposed Elastic 5G service enables applications to simply specify the desired QoS as constraints, and then deploy and link network functions together to deliver an end-to-end service that meets the specified requirements, making it possible to easily build new applications.

[0024] The present disclosure describes embodiments related to the creation and management of a cloud native 5G core and / or a cloud native 5G RAN and associated control plane components. Cloud native refers to an approach to building and running applications that leverages the advantages of a cloud computing distribution model, such as dynamic scalability, distributed computing, and high availability (including geographic distribution, redundancy, and failover). Cloud native refers to how these applications are created and deployed to be suitable for deployment in a public cloud. While cloud native applications can (and often do) run in a public cloud, they can also run in a local data center. Some cloud native applications can be containerized, for example packaging different parts, functions, or sub-units of an application in their own containers, which can be dynamically orchestrated so that each part can be actively scheduled and managed to optimize resource utilization. These containerized applications can be built using a microservices architecture to improve the overall agility and maintainability of the application.

[0025] In a microservices architecture, an application is arranged as a series of smaller sub-units ("microservices") that can be deployed and scaled independently of each other and can communicate with each other over a network. These microservices are typically fine-grained in that they have specific technical and functional granularity and typically implement lightweight communication protocols. The microservices of an application can perform different functions from each other, can be deployed independently, and can use different programming languages, databases, and hardware / software environments from each other. Decomposing an application into smaller services helps improve the modularity of the application, enables on-demand replacement of individual microservices, and parallelizes development by enabling teams to develop, deploy, and maintain their microservices independently of each other. In some examples, microservices can be deployed using virtual machines, containers, or serverless functions. The disclosed core and RAN software can follow a microservices architecture so that the described radio-based network consists of independent sub-units that can be deployed and scaled on demand.

[0026] Now turn to Figure 1A , which shows an example of a communication network 100 deployed and managed according to various embodiments of the present disclosure. The communication network 100 includes a radio-based private network 103, which can correspond to a cellular network such as a fourth generation (4G) long term evolution (LTE) network, a fifth generation (5G) network, a 4G-5G hybrid core with 4G and 5G RAN, or another network providing wireless network access. The radio-based private network 103 can be operated by a cloud service provider for an enterprise, non-profit organization, school system, government entity, or other organization. Although referred to as a private network, the radio-based private network 103 can use a private network address or a public network address in various embodiments.

[0027] Various deployments of the radio-based private network 103 may include one or more of a core network and a RAN network, and a control plane for running the core and / or RAN network on a cloud provider infrastructure. As described above, these components can be developed in a cloud-native manner, such as using a microservices architecture, so that traffic and transactions are efficiently scaled using centralized control and distributed processing. These components can be based on 3GPP specifications and follow an application architecture (CUPS architecture) that separates control plane and user plane processing.

[0028] The radio-based private network 103 provides wireless network access to a plurality of wireless devices 106, which may be mobile devices or fixed-location devices. In various examples, the wireless devices 106 may include smartphones, connected vehicles, IoT devices, sensors, machines (e.g., in manufacturing facilities), hotspots, and other devices. Such wireless devices 106 are sometimes referred to as user equipment (UE) or customer premises equipment (CPE).

[0029] The radio-based private network 103 may include a radio access network (RAN) that provides wireless network access to multiple wireless devices 106 through multiple cells 109. Each cell 109 may be equipped with one or more antennas and one or more radio units that send wireless data signals to and receive wireless data signals from the wireless device 106. The antenna may be configured for one or more frequency bands, and the radio unit may also be frequency agile or frequency adjustable. The antenna may be associated with a specific gain or beam width so as to focus the signal in a specific direction or azimuth range, thereby potentially allowing the reuse of frequencies in different directions. In addition, the antenna may be horizontally polarized, vertically polarized, or circularly polarized. In some examples, the radio unit may utilize multiple input multiple output (MIMO) technology to send and receive signals. In this way, the RAN implements radio access technology to achieve a radio connection with the wireless device 106 and provides a connection to the core network of the radio-based private network. The components of the RAN include base stations and antennas covering a given physical area, as well as core network items required for managing connections with the RAN.

[0030] Data traffic is typically routed to the core network through a fiber transport network consisting of multiple hops of layer 3 routers (e.g., at an aggregation site). The core network is typically housed in one or more data centers. The core network typically aggregates data traffic from terminal devices, authenticates subscribers and devices, applies personalized policies, and manages the mobility of devices before routing traffic to operator services or the Internet. For example, the 5G core can be decomposed into multiple microservice elements, in which the control plane and the user plane are separated. The 5G core may include virtualized, software-based network functions (e.g., deployed as microservices) rather than physical network elements, and can therefore be instantiated in a multi-access edge computing (MEC) cloud infrastructure. The network functions of the core network may include a user plane function (UPF), an access and mobility management function (AMF), and a session management function (SMF), which will be described in more detail below. For data traffic to locations outside the communication network 100, the network functions typically include a firewall through which traffic can enter or leave the communication network 100 to reach an external network, such as the Internet or a cloud provider network. Note that in some embodiments, the communications network 100 may include facilities that allow traffic to enter or leave from a site further downstream in the core network (eg, at an aggregation site or a radio-based private network 103).

[0031] UPF provides an interconnection point between the mobile infrastructure and the data network (DN), namely the encapsulation and decapsulation of the General Packet Radio Service (GPRS) tunneling protocol for the user plane (GTP-U). UPF can also provide a session anchor point for providing mobility within the RAN, including sending one or more end marker packets to the RAN base station. UPF can also handle packet routing and forwarding, including directing traffic to a specific data network based on traffic matching filters. Another feature of UPF includes per-flow or per-application QoS processing, including transport-level packet marking for uplink (UL) and downlink (DL), and rate limiting. UPF can be implemented as a cloud-native network function using a modern microservices approach, for example deployable within a serverless framework (abstracting the underlying infrastructure on which the code runs via managed services).

[0032] The AMF may receive connection and session information from the wireless device 106 or the RAN and may handle connection and mobility management tasks. For example, the AMF may manage handovers between base stations in the RAN. In some examples, the AMF may be considered an access point to the 5G core by terminating certain RAN control plane and wireless device 106 traffic. The AMF may also implement encryption and integrity protection algorithms.

[0033] SMF can handle session establishment or modification, such as by creating, updating, and deleting protocol data unit (PDU) sessions and managing session context within UPF. SMF can also implement Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol (DHCP) and IP Address Management (IPAM). SMF can be implemented as a cloud-native network function using a modern microservices approach.

[0034] Various network functions implementing the radio-based private network 103 may be deployed in a distributed computing device 112, which may correspond to a general-purpose computing device configured to perform network functions. For example, the distributed computing device 112 may execute one or more virtual machine instances, which in turn are configured to execute one or more services that perform network functions. In one embodiment, the distributed computing device 112 is a hardened machine deployed at each cell site.

[0035] In contrast, one or more centralized computing devices 115 can perform various network functions at a central site operated by a customer. For example, the centralized computing device 115 can be located at the center of the customer's premises in a conditional server room. The centralized computing device 115 can execute one or more virtual machine instances, which are in turn configured to execute one or more services that perform network functions.

[0036] In one or more embodiments, network traffic from the radio-based private network 103 is backhauled to one or more computing devices on the core network 118, which may be located in one or more data centers remote from the customer site. The core network 118 may also perform various network functions, including routing network traffic to and from a network 121, which may correspond to the Internet and / or other external public or private networks. The core network 118 may perform functionality related to management of the communication network 100 (e.g., billing, mobility management, etc.) as well as transport functionality to relay traffic between the communication network 100 and other networks.

[0037] Move to Figure 1B , shows an example of a radio-based private network 150 used on an organizational campus having multiple buildings 153 (such as a business such as a company, a school, or other organizational premises) and deployed according to various embodiments of the present disclosure. Figure 1B An example with multiple buildings is depicted, but it should be understood that the disclosed technology can be similarly applied to any layout of a site, which may include one or more buildings and / or one or more outdoor spaces (such as a stadium or other outdoor venue).

[0038] The radio-based private network 150 in this non-limiting example includes four cells 156a, 156b, 156c and 156d to completely cover the organizational campus. The cells 156 can overlap slightly to provide detailed coverage within each building 153. Adjacent or overlapping cells 156 are configured to operate with non-interfering frequencies. For example, cell 156a can use frequency A, cell 156b can use frequency B, and cell 156c can use frequency C, which are all different frequencies when the coverage of the corresponding cells 156a, 156b and 156c overlaps. However, cell 156d can use, for example, frequency A or B because the coverage of cell 156d does not overlap with cells 156a or 156b.

[0039] Note that cells 156 may be added to or removed from the radio-based private network 150, depending on usage or other network metrics. In some cases, the signal strength to the cells 156 may be increased to reduce the number of cells 156, or the signal strength to the cells 156 may be reduced to increase the number of cells 156, while allowing spectrum reuse between the cells 156. In addition, computing capacity may be added within the geographic area of ​​the organization's campus or within the cloud provider network to reduce latency, maintain security, and increase reliability of the radio-based private network 150 as needed. In some cases, the computing capacity of the software implementing the radio-based private network 150 may be mostly or entirely provisioned in the cloud provider network rather than at the customer's premises (e.g., in a regional data center of a cloud service provider). The software may implement various network functions, such as UPF, AMF, SMF, etc., which may correspond to core network functions, central unit network functions, and distributed unit network functions. Some network functions, such as distributed unit network functions, may be retained at the cell site.

[0040] Figure 2A An example of a networked environment 200 including a cloud provider network 203 and further including various provider underlying extensions of the cloud provider network according to some embodiments is shown, which can be used in conjunction with a local customer deployment within the communication network 100 of Figure 1. The cloud provider network 203 (sometimes referred to simply as a "cloud") refers to a network-accessible pool of computing resources (such as computing, storage and networking resources, applications and services), which can be virtualized or bare metal. The cloud can provide convenient on-demand network access to a shared pool of configurable computing resources that can be programmatically provisioned and released in response to customer commands. These resources can be dynamically provisioned and reconfigured to adjust to variable loads. Therefore, cloud computing can be viewed as applications delivered as services over a public accessible network (e.g., the Internet, a cellular communication network) and the hardware and software in the cloud provider data center that provides those services.

[0041] The cloud provider network 203 can provide users with an on-demand scalable computing platform through the network, for example, allowing users to have scalable "virtual computing devices" for their use through their use of computing servers (the computing servers provide computing instances through one or both of the central processing unit (CPU) and the graphics processing unit (GPU), optionally used together with local storage devices) and block storage servers (the block storage servers provide virtualized persistent block storage for designated computing instances). These virtual computing devices have the attributes of personal computing devices, including hardware (various types of processors, local memory, random access memory (RAM), hard disk and / or solid state drive (SSD) storage devices), operating system options, networking capabilities, and pre-loaded application software. Each virtual computing device can also virtualize its console input and output (e.g., keyboard, display, and mouse). This virtualization allows users to connect to their virtual computing devices using computer applications such as browsers, APIs, software development kits (SDKs), etc., so as to configure and use their virtual computing devices like personal computing devices. Unlike personal computing devices that have a fixed amount of hardware resources available to users, the hardware associated with virtual computing devices can be scaled up or down depending on the resources required by the user.

[0042] As indicated above, users can use various interfaces 206 (e.g., APIs) via the intermediate network 212 to connect to virtualized computing devices and other cloud provider network 203 resources and services, and configure and manage telecommunication networks such as 5G networks. API refers to an interface and / or communication protocol between a client device 215 and a server, such that if a client issues a request in a predefined format, the client should receive a response in a specific format or cause a defined action to be initiated. In the context of a cloud provider network, an API provides a gateway for clients to access cloud infrastructure by allowing them to obtain data from a cloud provider network or cause an action within the cloud provider network, thereby enabling the development of applications that interact with resources and services hosted in a cloud provider network. APIs can also enable different services of a cloud provider network to exchange data with each other. Users can choose to deploy their virtual computing systems to provide network-based services for their own use and / or for use by their customers or clients.

[0043] Cloud provider network 203 may include a physical network (e.g., sheet metal boxes, cables, rack hardware) referred to as an underlay. The underlay may be considered a network fabric that contains the physical hardware that runs the provider network's services. The underlay may be isolated from the rest of cloud provider network 203, e.g., it may not be possible to route from an underlay network address to an address in a production network running a cloud provider service, or to a customer network hosting customer resources.

[0044] The cloud provider network 203 may also include an overlay network of virtualized computing resources running on the bottom layer. In at least some embodiments, the hypervisor or other device or process on the network bottom layer may use encapsulation protocol technology to encapsulate and route network packets (e.g., client IP packets) between client resource instances on different hosts in the provider network through the network bottom layer. Encapsulation protocol technology may be used on the network bottom layer to route encapsulated packets (also referred to as network bottom layer packets) between endpoints on the network bottom layer via an overlay network path or route. Encapsulation protocol technology may be viewed as providing a virtual network topology overlaid on the network bottom layer. Thus, network packets may be routed along the bottom layer network according to the construction in the overlay network (e.g., a virtual network that may be referred to as a virtual private cloud (VPC), a port / protocol firewall configuration that may be referred to as a security group). A mapping service (not shown) may coordinate the routing of these network packets. A mapping service may be a regional distributed lookup service that maps a combination of an overlay Internet protocol (IP) and a network identifier to the bottom layer IP so that a distributed bottom layer computing device may find where to send the packet.

[0045] For illustration, each physical host device (e.g., computing server, block storage server, object storage server, control server) may have an IP address in the underlying network. Hardware virtualization technology may enable multiple operating systems to run simultaneously on a host computer, for example as a virtual machine (VM) on a computing server. The hypervisor or virtual machine monitor (VMM) on the host allocates the hardware resources of the host between the various VMs on the host and monitors the execution of the VM. Each VM may be provided with one or more IP addresses in the overlay network, and the VMM on the host may know the IP address of the VM on the host. The VMM (and / or other devices or processes on the network bottom layer) may use encapsulation protocol technology to encapsulate network packets (e.g., client IP packets) and route the network packets between virtualized resources on different hosts within the cloud provider network 203 through the network bottom layer. Encapsulation protocol technology may be used on the network bottom layer to route encapsulated packets between endpoints on the network bottom layer via an overlay network path or route. Encapsulation protocol technology may be viewed as providing a virtual network topology overlaid on the network bottom layer. The encapsulation protocol technology may include a mapping service that maintains a mapping directory that maps IP overlay addresses (e.g., IP addresses visible to the customer) to underlying IP addresses (IP addresses not visible to the customer) that can be accessed by various processes on the cloud provider network 203 for routing packets between endpoints.

[0046] As shown, in various embodiments, the traffic and operations at the bottom layer of the cloud provider network can be broadly subdivided into two categories: control plane traffic carried on the logical control plane 218 and data plane operations carried on the logical data plane 221. While the data plane 221 represents the movement of user data through the distributed computing system, the control plane 218 represents the movement of control signals through the distributed computing system. The control plane 218 typically includes one or more control plane components or services distributed on and implemented by one or more control servers. Control plane traffic typically includes management operations, such as establishing isolated virtual networks for various customers, monitoring resource usage and health, identifying specific hosts or servers to start the requested computing instances, pre-configuring additional hardware as needed, and the like. The data plane 221 includes customer resources (e.g., computing instances, containers, block storage volumes, databases, file storage) implemented on the cloud provider network. Data plane traffic typically includes non-management operations, such as transmitting data to and from customer resources.

[0047] The control plane components are typically implemented on a set of servers separate from the data plane servers, and the control plane traffic and the data plane traffic can be sent over separate / different networks. In some embodiments, the control plane traffic and the data plane traffic can be supported by different protocols. In some embodiments, the message (e.g., packet) sent by the cloud provider network 203 includes a flag for indicating whether the traffic is control plane traffic or data plane traffic. In some embodiments, the payload of the traffic can be checked to determine its type (e.g., control plane or data plane). Other techniques for distinguishing traffic types are possible.

[0048] As shown, data plane 221 may include one or more computing servers, which may be bare metal (e.g., a single tenant) or may be virtualized by a hypervisor to run multiple VMs (sometimes referred to as "instances") or microVMs for one or more customers. These computing servers may support virtualized computing services (or "hardware virtualization services") for cloud provider networks. Virtualized computing services may be part of control plane 218, thereby allowing customers to issue commands via interface 206 (e.g., API) to start and manage computing instances (e.g., VMs, containers) of their applications. Virtualized computing services may provide virtual computing instances with different computing and / or memory resources. In one embodiment, each of the virtual computing instances may correspond to one of several instance types. The characteristics of an instance type may be its hardware type, computing resources (e.g., the number, type, and configuration of CPUs or CPU cores), memory resources (e.g., the capacity, type, and configuration of local memory), storage resources (e.g., the capacity, type, and configuration of locally accessible storage devices), network resources (e.g., the characteristics of its network interface and / or network capabilities), and / or other suitable descriptive characteristics. Using the instance type selection functionality, an instance type can be selected for a customer based, for example, at least in part, on input from the customer. For example, the customer can select an instance type from a set of predefined instance types. As another example, the customer can specify the desired resources for the instance type and / or the requirements of the workload that the instance will run, and the instance type selection functionality can select the instance type based on such specifications.

[0049] The data plane 221 may also include one or more block storage servers, which may include persistent storage devices for storing customer data volumes and software for managing these volumes. These block storage servers may support managed block storage services for the cloud provider network. The managed block storage service may be part of the control plane 218, allowing customers to issue commands via the interface 206 (e.g., API) to create and manage volumes for applications running on their computing instances. The block storage server includes one or more servers on which data is stored as blocks. A block is a sequence of bytes or bits, typically containing a certain integer number of records, with a maximum length of the block size. Blocked data is typically stored in a data buffer and the block data is read or written to the entire block at a time. Typically, a volume may correspond to a logical collection of data, such as a set of data maintained on behalf of a user. A user volume (which may be viewed as, for example, an individual hard drive ranging in size from 1GB to 1 terabyte (TB) or more) consists of one or more blocks stored on a block storage server. Although viewed as an individual hard drive, it should be understood that a volume may be stored as one or more virtualized devices implemented on one or more underlying physical host devices. A volume can be partitioned several times (e.g., up to 16 times), with each partition hosted by a different host. The data of a volume can be replicated between multiple devices within a cloud provider network to provide multiple copies of the volume (where such copies can collectively represent a volume on a computing system). Volume copies in a distributed computing system can, for example, be beneficially provided with automatic failover and recovery by allowing a user to access a primary copy of the volume or a secondary copy of the volume that is synchronized with the primary copy at a block level, so that the failure of the primary copy or the secondary copy does not prevent access to volume information. The role of the primary copy can be to facilitate reading and writing (sometimes referred to as "input and output operations" or simply "I / O operations") on the volume, and propagate any writes to the secondary copy (preferably synchronously propagated in the I / O path, but asynchronous replication can also be used). The secondary copy can be updated synchronously with the primary copy and provide a seamless transition during a failover operation, whereby the secondary copy assumes the role of the primary copy, and the previous primary copy is designated as a secondary copy or a new replacement secondary copy is provisioned. Although some examples in this article discuss primary and secondary copies, it should be understood that a logical volume can include multiple secondary copies. The computing instance can virtualize its I / O to the volume through the client. The client represents instructions that enable a computing instance to connect to a remote data volume (e.g., a data volume stored on a physically separate computing device accessed over a network) and perform I / O operations at the remote data volume. The client can be implemented on an offload card of a server that includes a processing unit (e.g., a CPU or a GPU) of the computing instance.

[0050] The data plane 221 may also include one or more object storage servers, which represent another type of storage device within the cloud provider network. The object storage server includes one or more servers on which data is stored as objects within a resource called a bucket and can be used to support the managed object storage service of the cloud provider network. Each object typically includes the stored data, a variable metadata that enables the object storage server to analyze the various capabilities of the stored object, and a globally unique identifier or key that can be used to retrieve the object. Each bucket is associated with a given user account. Customers can store many objects in their buckets as needed, can write, read and delete objects in their buckets, and can control access to their buckets and the objects contained therein. In addition, in an embodiment with multiple different object storage servers distributed in different areas of the above-mentioned area, users can select the area (or multiple areas) of the storage bucket, for example to optimize latency. Customers can use buckets to store various types of objects, including machine images that can be used to start VMs, and snapshots representing point-in-time views of volume data.

[0051] The provider subnet extension 224 ("PSE") provides the resources and services of the cloud provider network 203 within a separate network (such as a telecommunications network), thereby extending the functionality of the cloud provider network 203 to new locations (e.g., for reasons related to latency of communicating with customer devices, legal compliance, security, etc.). In some embodiments, the PSE 224 can be configured to provide the capacity of cloud-based workloads to run within the telecommunications network. In some embodiments, the PSE 224 can be configured to provide core and / or RAN functions of the telecommunications network, and can be configured with additional hardware (e.g., radio access hardware). Some embodiments can be configured to allow both, for example by allowing unused capacity of the core and / or RAN functions to be used to run cloud-based workloads.

[0052] As indicated, such provider underlay extensions 224 may include cloud provider network managed provider underlay extensions 227 (e.g., formed by servers located in cloud provider managed facilities separate from those facilities associated with cloud provider network 203), communications service provider underlay extensions 230 (e.g., formed by servers associated with communications service provider facilities), customer managed provider underlay extensions 233 (e.g., formed by servers located locally at a customer or partner facility), and other possible types of underlay extensions.

[0053] As shown in the exemplary provider underlying extension 224, the provider underlying extension 224 can similarly include a logical separation between a control plane 236 and a data plane 239, which respectively extend the control plane 218 and the data plane 221 of the cloud provider network 203. The provider underlying extension 224 can be pre-configured with an appropriate combination of hardware and software and / or firmware elements, for example, by the cloud provider network operator to support various types of computing-related resources, and do so in a manner that reflects the experience of using the cloud provider network. For example, one or more provider underlying extension location servers can be pre-configured by the cloud provider to be deployed within the provider underlying extension 224. As described above, the cloud provider network 203 can provide a set of predefined instance types, each instance type having a different type and number of underlying hardware resources. Each instance type can also be provided in various sizes. In order to enable customers to continue to use the same instance types and sizes that they use in the region in the provider underlying extension 224, the server can be a heterogeneous server. A heterogeneous server can support multiple instance sizes of the same type at the same time, and can also be reconfigured to host any instance type supported by its underlying hardware resources. The reconfiguration of heterogeneous servers can occur on the fly using the available capacity of the servers, i.e., while other VMs are still running and consuming other capacity of the provider underlying extension location servers. This can improve the utilization of computing resources within the edge location by allowing better packaging of running instances on the servers, and also provide a seamless experience with regard to the use of instances on the cloud provider network 203 and the provider underlying extension 227 managed by the cloud provider network.

[0054] The provider underlying extension server can host one or more computing instances. The computing instance can be a VM, or a container that packages the code and all its dependencies, so that the application can run quickly and reliably across computing environments (e.g., including VMs and microVMs). In addition, if the customer needs, the server can host one or more data volumes. In the region of the cloud provider network 203, such volumes can be hosted on dedicated block storage servers. However, due to the possibility of having significantly smaller capacity at the provider underlying extension 224 than in the region, if the provider underlying extension 224 includes such a dedicated block storage server, it may not provide the best utilization experience. Therefore, the block storage service can be virtualized in the provider underlying extension 224, so that one of the VMs runs the block storage software and stores the data of the volume. Similar to the operation of the block storage service in the region of the cloud provider network 203, the volume within the provider underlying extension 224 can be replicated to achieve persistence and availability. The volume can be provisioned in its own isolated virtual network within the provider underlying extension 224. The computing instance and any volume together constitute the data plane 239 extension of the provider network data plane 221 within the provider underlying extension 224.

[0055] In some embodiments, servers within the provider underlay extension 224 may host certain local control plane components, such as components that enable the provider underlay extension 224 to continue to operate in the event of a loss of connectivity back to the cloud provider network 203. Examples of these components include a migration manager that can move compute instances between provider underlay extension servers if necessary to maintain availability, and a key value data store that indicates where volume replicas are located. However, the control plane 236 functionality typically used for the provider underlay extension will remain in the cloud provider network 203 to allow customers to use as much of the resource capacity of the provider underlay extension as possible.

[0056] The migration manager may have a centralized coordination component running in the region, and a local controller running on a PSE server (as well as a server in a cloud provider data center). When a migration is triggered, the centralized coordination component can identify the target edge location and / or the target host, and the local controller can coordinate the data transfer between the source host and the target host. The described resource movement between hosts in different locations can take one of several forms of migration. Migration refers to moving virtual machine instances (and / or other resources) between hosts in a cloud computing network or between hosts outside a cloud computing network and hosts within the cloud. There are different types of migration, including live migration and restart migration. During the restart migration, customers experience an interruption and effective power cycle of their virtual machine instances. For example, a control plane service can coordinate a restart migration workflow that involves dismantling the current domain on the original host and then creating a new domain for the virtual machine instance on the new host. The instance is restarted by shutting down on the original host and starting again on the new host.

[0057] Live migration refers to the process of moving a running virtual machine or application between different physical machines without significantly interrupting the availability of the virtual machine (e.g., end users will not notice the downtime of the virtual machine). When the control plane executes the live migration workflow, it can create a new "inactive" domain associated with the instance, while the original domain of the instance continues to run as the "active" domain. The virtual machine's memory (including any in-memory state of running applications), storage, and network connectivity are transferred from the original host with the active domain to the destination host with the inactive domain. The virtual machine may be briefly paused to prevent state changes while the memory contents are transferred to the destination host. The control plane can transition the inactive domain to become the active domain and demote the original active domain to become the inactive domain (sometimes called "flipping"), after which the inactive domain can be discarded.

[0058] The technology for various types of migration involves managing a key phase: the time that a virtual machine instance is unavailable to a customer, which should be kept as short as possible. In currently disclosed migration technologies, this can be particularly challenging because resources are moving between hosts in geographically separated locations that can be connected by one or more intermediate networks. For live migration, the disclosed technology can dynamically determine the amount of memory state data to be pre-copied (e.g., when the instance is still running on the source host) and to be post-copied (e.g., after the instance starts running on the destination host), for example, based on latency between locations, network bandwidth / usage patterns, and / or based on which memory pages are most often used by the instance. In addition, the specific time to transmit memory state data can be dynamically determined based on the network conditions between locations. This analysis can be performed by a migration management component in the region, or by a migration management component running locally in the source edge location. If the instance has access to a virtualized storage device, both the source domain and the target domain can be attached to the storage device at the same time to enable uninterrupted access to its data during migration and in the event that a rollback to the source domain is required.

[0059] The server software running on the provider underlay extension 224 may be designed by the cloud provider to run on the cloud provider underlay network, and the software may be able to run unmodified in the provider underlay extension 224 to create a private copy of the underlay network (“shadow underlay”) within the edge location by using a local network manager 242. The local network manager 242 may run on the provider underlay extension 224 server and bridge the shadow underlay with the provider underlay extension 224 network, for example, by acting as a virtual private network (VPN) endpoint or endpoint between the provider underlay extension 224 and the proxies 245, 248 in the cloud provider network 203 and by implementing a mapping service (for traffic encapsulation and decapsulation) to associate data plane traffic (from the data plane proxy 248) and control plane traffic (from the control plane proxy 245) with the appropriate servers. By implementing a local version of the provider network's underlay overlay mapping service, the local network manager 242 allows resources in the provider underlay extension 224 to communicate seamlessly with resources in the cloud provider network 203. In some embodiments, a single local network manager 242 may perform these actions for all servers hosting compute instances in the provider underlay extension 224. In other embodiments, each of the servers hosting the compute instances may have a dedicated local network manager 242. In a multi-rack edge location, inter-rack communications may go through the local network managers 242, where the local network managers maintain open tunnels between each other.

[0060] The provider underlying extension location can utilize secure networking tunnels through the provider underlying extension 224 network to the cloud provider network 203, for example, to maintain the security of customer data when traversing the provider underlying extension 224 network and any other intermediate networks (possibly including the public Internet). Within the cloud provider network 203, these tunnels consist of virtual infrastructure components including isolated virtual networks (e.g., in an overlay network), control plane agents 245, data plane agents 248, and underlying network interfaces. Such agents 245, 248 can be implemented as containers running on computing instances. In some embodiments, each server in the provider underlying extension 224 location hosting a computing instance can utilize at least two tunnels: one tunnel for control plane traffic (e.g., Constrained Application Protocol (CoAP) traffic) and one tunnel for encapsulated data plane traffic. A connectivity manager (not shown) within the cloud provider network 203 manages their cloud provider network-side lifecycles, for example, by automatically provisioning these tunnels and their components when needed and maintaining them in a healthy operating state. In some embodiments, a direct connection between the provider underlying extension 224 location and the cloud provider network 203 can be used for control and data plane communications. Compared to VPNs that go through other networks, direct connections can provide constant bandwidth and more consistent network performance because its network path is relatively fixed and stable.

[0061] A control plane (CP) agent 245 may be provisioned in the cloud provider network 203 to represent a specific host in an edge location. The CP agent 245 is an intermediary between the control plane 218 in the cloud provider network 203 and the control plane target in the control plane 236 of the provider bottom layer extension 224. That is, the CP agent 245 provides an infrastructure for tunneling management API traffic destined for the provider bottom layer extension server from the regional bottom layer to the provider bottom layer extension 224. For example, a virtualized computing service of the cloud provider network 203 may issue a command to the VMM of the server of the provider bottom layer extension 224 to start a computing instance. The CP agent 245 maintains a tunnel (e.g., VPN) to the local network manager 242 of the provider bottom layer extension. The software implemented in the CP agent 245 ensures that only well-formed API traffic leaves and returns to the bottom layer. The CP agent 245 provides a mechanism to expose remote servers on the cloud provider bottom layer while still protecting the bottom layer security materials (e.g., encryption keys, security tokens) from leaving the cloud provider network 203. The unidirectional control plane traffic tunnel imposed by the CP proxy 245 also prevents any (potentially compromised) device from calling back to the underlay. The CP proxy 245 may be instantiated one-to-one with a server at the provider underlay extension 224, or may be able to manage control plane traffic for multiple servers in the same provider underlay extension.

[0062] Data plane (DP) agent 248 can also be pre-configured in cloud provider network 203 to represent a specific server in provider bottom layer extension 224. DP agent 248 acts as a shadow or anchor point of the server and can be used by services in cloud provider network 203 to monitor the health status of the host (including its availability, used / idle computing and capacity, used / idle storage and capacity, and network bandwidth utilization / availability). DP agent 248 also allows isolated virtual networks to span provider bottom layer extension 224 and cloud provider network 203 by acting as an agent for servers in cloud provider network 203. Each DP agent 248 can be implemented as a packet forwarding computing instance or container. As shown, each DP agent 248 can maintain a VPN tunnel with a local network manager 242, and the local network manager manages the traffic to the server represented by DP agent 248. The tunnel can be used to send data plane traffic between provider bottom layer extension servers and cloud provider network 203. Data plane traffic flowing between the provider underlay extension 224 and the cloud provider network 203 may pass through the DP agent 248 associated with the provider underlay extension 224. For data plane traffic flowing from the provider underlay extension 224 to the cloud provider network 203, the DP agent 248 may receive the encapsulated data plane traffic, verify its correctness, and allow it to enter the cloud provider network 203. The DP agent 248 may forward the encapsulated traffic from the cloud provider network 203 directly to the provider underlay extension 224.

[0063] The local network manager 242 can provide secure network connectivity with the agents 245, 248 established in the cloud provider network 203. After the connection between the local network manager 242 and the agents 245, 248 has been established, the customer can issue commands via the interface 206 to use the provider underlying extension resources to instantiate a computing instance (and / or perform other operations using the computing instance) in a manner similar to the manner in which such commands would be issued for a computing instance hosted within the cloud provider network 203. From the customer's perspective, the customer can now seamlessly use local resources within the provider underlying extension (as well as resources located in the cloud provider network 203, if desired). The computing instance set up on the server at the provider underlying extension 224 can communicate with electronic devices located in the same network, as well as communicate with other resources set up in the cloud provider network 203 as needed. The local gateway 251 can be implemented to provide network connectivity between the provider underlying extension 224 and the network associated with the extension (e.g., the communication service provider network in the example of the communication service provider underlying extension 230).

[0064] There may be situations where data needs to be transferred between the object storage service and the provider base extension (PSE) 224. For example, the object storage service may store machine images used to start VMs, as well as snapshots representing point-in-time backups of volumes. The object gateway may be provided on a PSE server or dedicated storage device, and provides customers with a configurable per-bucket cache of the contents of their object storage buckets in the PSE 224 to minimize the impact of PSE regional latency on customer workloads. The object gateway may also temporarily store snapshot data from snapshots of volumes in the PSE 224, and then synchronize with the object server in the region when possible. The object gateway may also store machine images that the customer specifies for use within the PSE 224 or at the customer's premises. In some embodiments, data within the PSE 224 may be encrypted with a unique key, and for security reasons, the cloud provider may restrict the key from being shared from the region to the PSE 224. Therefore, data exchanged between the object storage server and the object gateway may utilize encryption, decryption, and / or re-encryption in order to preserve security boundaries regarding encryption keys or other sensitive data. The transformation agent can perform these operations and can create a PSE bucket (on the object storage server) using the PSE encryption key to store the snapshot data and the machine image data.

[0065] In the above manner, PSE 224 forms an edge location because it provides resources and services of cloud provider network 203 outside of traditional cloud provider data centers and closer to customer devices. Edge locations as referred to herein can be structured in a variety of ways. In some embodiments, edge locations can be an extension of the underlying cloud provider network, including a limited amount of capacity provided outside the availability zone (e.g., in a small data center of a cloud provider or in other facilities located near customer workloads and possibly far from any availability zone). Such edge locations can be referred to as "far zones" (due to being far from other availability zones) or "near zones" (due to being close to customer workloads). Near zones can be connected to publicly accessible networks such as the Internet in various ways (e.g., directly, via another network, or via a dedicated connection to a region). Although near zones typically have more limited capacity than a certain region, in some cases, near zones may have considerable capacity, such as thousands or more racks.

[0066] In some embodiments, an edge location may be an extension of the cloud provider network's underlying layer formed by one or more servers located locally at a customer or partner facility, where such servers communicate with nearby availability zones or regions of the cloud provider network over a network (e.g., a publicly accessible network such as the Internet). This type of underlying extension located outside of a cloud provider network data center may be referred to as an "outpost" of the cloud provider network. Some outposts may be integrated into a communications network, for example, as multi-access edge computing (MEC) sites, the physical infrastructure of which is distributed across telecommunication data centers, telecommunication aggregation sites, and / or telecommunication base stations within a telecommunication network. In a local example, the limited capacity of the outpost may be available only to the customer who owns the premises (and any other accounts permitted by the customer). In a telecommunication example, the limited capacity of the outpost may be shared among multiple applications (e.g., games, virtual reality applications, healthcare applications) that send data to users of the telecommunication network.

[0067] Edge locations may include data plane capacity that is at least partially controlled by a control plane of a nearby availability zone of a provider network. Thus, an availability zone group may include a "parent" availability zone and any "child" edge locations that are subordinate to the parent availability zone (e.g., at least partially controlled by its control plane). Certain limited control plane functionality (e.g., features that require low-latency communication with customer resources, and / or features that enable the edge location to continue to operate when disconnected from the parent availability zone) may also exist in some edge locations. Thus, in the above examples, an edge location refers to an extension of at least data plane capacity located at the edge of the cloud provider network, close to customer devices and / or workloads.

[0068] exist Figure 1A In the example of Figure 1A )、centralized computing device 115( Figure 1A ) and core computing device 118 ( Figure 1A ) can be implemented as a provider underlay extension 224 of the cloud provider network 203. The installation or location of the provider underlay extension 224 within the communication network 100 may vary depending on the specific network topology or architecture of the communication network 100. The provider underlay extension 224 can generally be connected to any location of the communication network 100 where packet-based traffic (e.g., IP-based traffic) can be interrupted. In addition, communications between a given provider underlay extension 224 and the cloud provider network 203 are generally securely transited through at least a portion of the communication network 100 (e.g., via a secure tunnel, a virtual private network, a direct connection, etc.).

[0069] In the 5G wireless network development work, edge locations can be considered as a possible implementation of multi-access edge computing (MEC). Such edge locations can be connected to various points in the 5G network, which provide interruptions for data traffic as part of the user plane function (UPF). Older wireless networks may also contain edge locations. For example, in a 3G wireless network, an edge location can be connected to a packet-switched network portion of the communication network 100, such as a connection to a serving general packet radio service support node (SGSN) or to a gateway general packet radio service support node (GGSN). In a 4G wireless network, an edge location can be connected to a serving gateway (SGW) or a packet data network gateway (PGW) as part of a core network or an evolved packet core (EPC). In some embodiments, traffic between the provider underlying extension 224 and the cloud provider network 203 can be interrupted from the communication network 100 without being routed through the core network.

[0070] In some embodiments, the provider underlay extension 224 can be connected to more than one communication network associated with a respective customer. For example, when two communication networks of the respective customers share or route traffic through a common point, the provider underlay extension 224 can be connected to both networks. For example, each customer can allocate a portion of its network address space to the provider underlay extension, and the provider underlay extension can include a router or gateway that can distinguish traffic exchanged with each of the communication networks 100. For example, traffic from one network to the provider underlay extension 224 may have a different destination IP address, source IP address, and / or virtual local area network (VLAN) tag than traffic received from another network. Traffic originating from the provider underlay extension to a destination on one of the networks can be similarly encapsulated with an appropriate VLAN tag, source IP address (e.g., from a pool allocated to the provider underlay extension from the destination network address space), and destination IP address.

[0071] Figure 2B Depicted is a communication network 100 ( Figure 1A ) to provide a highly available user plane function (UPF). Figure 2BIn the example, user device 254 communicates with request router 255 to route the request to one of multiple control plane cells 257a and 257b. Each control plane cell 257 may include a network service API gateway 260, a network slice configuration 262, a network service monitoring function 264, site planning data 266 (including layout, device type, number of devices, etc. describing customer site requirements), a network service / function catalog 268, an orchestration function 270, and / or other components. A large control plane can be divided into multiple cells to reduce the possibility of large-scale errors affecting a wide range of customers, for example, by having one or more cells per customer, per network, or per independently operated area.

[0072] The network service / function directory 268 is also referred to as the NF repository function (NRF). In a service-based architecture (SBA) 5G network, control plane functions and a common data repository can be delivered through a set of interconnected network functions built using a microservice architecture. The NRF can maintain a record of available NF instances and the services they support, allowing other NF instances to subscribe and notify registrations from NF instances of a given type. Therefore, the NRF can support service discovery by receiving discovery requests from NF instances and detailed information about which NF instances support specific services. The network function orchestrator 270 can perform NF lifecycle management, including instantiation, outward expansion / inward expansion, performance measurement, event correlation, and termination. The network function orchestrator 270 can also load new NFs, manage migration to new or updated versions of existing NFs, identify NF sets suitable for specific network slices or larger networks, and orchestrate NFs between different computing devices and sites that constitute the radio-based private network 103.

[0073] The control plane cell 257 can communicate with one or more cell sites 272, one or more customer local data centers 274, one or more local zones 276, and one or more regional zones 278. The cell site 272 includes computing hardware 280 that executes one or more distributed unit (DU) network functions 282. The customer local data center 274 includes computing hardware 283 that executes one or more DU or central unit (CU) network functions 284, a network controller 285, a UPF 286, one or more edge applications 287 corresponding to customer workloads, and / or other components.

[0074] The local region 276 (which may be located in a data center operated by a cloud service provider) may execute one or more core network functions 288, such as AMF, SMF, a network open function (NEF) that securely exposes the services and capabilities of other network functions, and a unified data management (UDM) function that manages subscriber data for authorization, registration, and mobility management. The local region 276 may also execute UPF 286, a metric processing service 289, and one or more edge applications 287.

[0075] A regional zone 278 (which may be located in a data center operated by a cloud service provider) may execute one or more core network functions 288; a UPF 286; an operations support system (OSS) 290 that supports network management systems, service delivery, service implementation, service assurance, and customer service; an Internet Protocol Multimedia Subsystem (IMS) 291; a business support system (BSS) 292 that supports product management, customer management, revenue management, and / or order management; one or more portal applications 293, and / or other components.

[0076] In this example, the communication network 100 employs a cellular architecture to reduce the blast radius of each component. At the top level, the control plane is located in multiple control plane cells 257 to prevent a single control plane failure from affecting all deployments.

[0077] Within each control plane cell 257, multiple redundant stacks can be provided, with the control plane shifting traffic to secondary stacks as needed. For example, a cell site 272 can be configured to utilize a nearby local region 276 as its default core network. In the event that the local region 276 experiences an outage, the control plane can redirect the cell site 272 to use a backup stack in a regional region 278. Traffic that would normally be routed from the Internet to the local region 276 can be shifted to endpoints in the regional region 278. Each control plane cell 257 can implement a "stateless" architecture that shares a common session database across multiple sites, such as across availability zones or edge sites.

[0078] Figure 3A An example of an underlying extension 224 (including geographically dispersed providers) is shown according to some embodiments. Figure 2A) (or "edge location 303"). As shown, the cloud provider network 203 can be formed into multiple regions 306, where a region is a separate geographic area in which a cloud provider has one or more data centers 309. Each region 306 may include two or more availability zones (AZs) connected to each other via a dedicated high-speed network such as, for example, a fiber optic communication connection. An availability zone refers to an isolated fault domain that includes one or more data center facilities that have separate power, separate networking, and separate cooling relative to other availability zones. Cloud providers may strive to locate availability zones within a region far enough apart from each other that natural disasters, large-scale power outages, or other unexpected events do not take more than one availability zone offline at the same time. Customers can connect to resources within an availability zone of the cloud provider network via a publicly accessible network (e.g., the Internet, a cellular communication network, a communication service provider network). A transit center (TC) is the main backbone location that links customers to the cloud provider network and can be co-located in other network provider facilities (e.g., an Internet service provider, a telecommunications provider). Two or more TCs can be operated per region for redundancy. The regions 306 are connected to a global network that includes private networking infrastructure (e.g., fiber optic connections controlled by a cloud service provider) that connects each region 306 to at least one other region. Cloud provider network 203 can deliver content from points of presence (PoPs) that are external to but networked with these regions 306 through edge locations 303 and regional edge cache servers. This division and geographic distribution of computing hardware enables cloud provider network 203 to provide customers with low-latency resource access with a high degree of fault tolerance and stability on a global scale.

[0079] The number of edge locations 303 can be much higher than the number of regional data centers or availability zones. This widespread deployment of edge locations 303 can provide low-latency connectivity to the cloud for a much larger group of end-user devices (compared to those end-user devices that happen to be very close to regional data centers). In some embodiments, each edge location 303 can be peered to a portion of the cloud provider network 203 (e.g., a parent availability zone or regional data center). This peering allows various components operating in the cloud provider network 203 to manage the computing resources of the edge location 303. In some cases, multiple edge locations 303 can be located or installed in the same facility (e.g., separate racks of computer systems) and managed by different zones or data centers to provide additional redundancy. It should be noted that although edge locations 303 are generally depicted herein as being in a communications service provider network or a radio-based private network 103 ( Figure 1A), but in some cases, such as when cloud provider network facilities are relatively close to communications service provider facilities, edge location 303 can remain within the physical premises of cloud provider network 203 while being connected to the communications service provider network via fiber optic or other network links.

[0080] Edge location 303 can be structured in many ways.In some embodiments, edge location 303 can be an extension of the underlying cloud provider network, including a limited amount of capacity provided outside the available zone (e.g., in a small data center of a cloud provider or located near the customer workload and possibly in other facilities far away from any available zone).Such edge location 303 can be referred to as a local area (therefore more local or closer to a group of users than traditional available zones). The local area can be connected to a public accessible network such as the Internet in various ways (such as directly, via another network or via a dedicated connection with region 306).Although usually the local area has a more limited capacity than region 306, in some cases, the local area may have considerable capacity, such as thousands or more racks.Some local areas can use infrastructure similar to a typical cloud provider data center, rather than the edge location 303 infrastructure described herein.

[0081] As indicated herein, the cloud provider network 203 can be formed into multiple regions 306, where each region 306 represents a geographic region in which the cloud provider clusters data centers. Each region 306 can also include multiple (e.g., two or more) availability zones (AZs) connected to each other via a dedicated high-speed network such as a fiber optic communication connection. The AZ can provide an isolated fault domain including one or more data center facilities, which have separate power supplies, separate networking, and separate cooling relative to those data center facilities in another AZ. Preferably, the AZs within a region 306 are far enough apart from each other that the same natural disaster (or other failure-inducing event) does not affect more than one AZ at the same time or take more than one AZ offline. Customers can connect to the AZs of the cloud provider network via a publicly accessible network (e.g., the Internet, a cellular communication network).

[0082] A given edge location 303 as a parent of an AZ or region 306 of a cloud provider network 203 can be based on many factors. One such parent factor is data sovereignty. For example, in order to keep data originating from a communication network in a certain country in the country, an edge location 303 deployed in the communication network can be a parent of an AZ or region 306 of the country. Another factor is the availability of services. For example, some edge locations 303 may have different hardware configurations, such as whether there are components, such as local non-volatile storage devices (e.g., solid-state drives), graphics accelerators, etc. for customer data. Some AZs or regions 306 may lack services that utilize these additional resources, so the edge location can be a parent of an AZ or region 306 that supports the use of these resources. Another factor is the latency between an AZ or region 306 and an edge location 303. Although there are latency benefits to deploying edge locations 303 in a communication network, those benefits may be offset by using edge locations 303 as parents of distant AZs or regions 306, which can introduce significant latency to edge location 303 to regional traffic. Thus, edge location 303 is typically a parent of a nearby (in terms of network latency) AZ or zone 306 .

[0083] Figure 3B Depicted is a radio-based dedicated network 103 ( Figure 1A ) is a state diagram 320 for the creation and management of a radio-based private network 103. Starting in the created state 322, a representation of the radio-based private network 103 is created in response to a customer request via a user interface or an API call. If the customer subsequently requests to activate the radio-based private network 103, the radio-based private network 103 transitions to a suspended state 324. At this point, the radio-based private network 103 is considered locked such that configuration changes cannot be made to the radio-based private network 103.

[0084] Within the suspended state 324, the radio-based private network 103 moves to the deployed state 326, in which the radio units, DU / CU hardware, and in some cases edge computing hardware are ordered and pre-configured for use in the radio-based private network 103. Next, the radio-based private network 103 continues to the shipping state 328, in which the pre-configured hardware is shipped to the customer's site. Other hardware (such as antennas, tower components, network routers, cables, etc.) may be shipped to the customer site as part of the shipment. In some embodiments, the wireless device 106 ( Figure 1A )'s subscriber identity module (SIM) may also be shipped. Once shipped, the radio-based private network 103 moves to the delivered state 330. At the same time, the core network 118 ( Figure 1A ) can be on the cloud provider network 203 ( Figure 2A ) is provisioned and configured within to support a radio-based private network 103.

[0085] After the hardware is connected, the radio-based private network 103 may then move to the activated state 332. In the activated state 332, the radio-based private network 103 is online and available to provide connectivity to wireless devices 106 that have been configured to access the radio-based private network 103. While in the activated state 332, the customer may request changes to update the radio-based private network 103, such as requesting additional or different hardware, thereby causing the radio-based private network 103 to re-enter the suspended state 324. Alternatively, the customer may request to delete the radio-based private network 103 from the activated state 332, causing the radio-based private network 103 to be deactivated and enter the deleted state 336.

[0086] If any process fails in the pending state 324, the radio-based private network 103 may enter the deactivated state 338. From the deactivated state 338, the customer may update the radio-based private network 103 to resolve the failure, thereby re-entering the pending state 324. Alternatively, the customer may request to delete the radio-based private network 103, which causes the radio-based private network 103 to enter the deleted state 336. If the user chooses not to activate the radio-based private network 103, the user may also cause the radio-based private network 103 to enter the created deleted state 336 from the created state 322.

[0087] refer to Figure 4 , a networked environment 400 according to various embodiments is shown. The networked environment 400 includes a computing environment 403, one or more client devices 406, one or more provider computing devices 408, one or more pre-deployment devices 409, a spectrum reservation service 410, and one or more radio-based private networks 103, which communicate data with each other via a network 412. The network 412 includes, for example, the Internet, an intranet, an extranet, a wide area network (WAN), a local area network (LAN), a wired network, a wireless network, a cable TV network, a satellite network, or other suitable networks, or any combination of two or more such networks.

[0088] The computing environment 403 may include, for example, a server computer or any other system that provides computing capacity. Optionally, the computing environment 403 may employ multiple computing devices, which may be arranged, for example, in one or more server groups or computer groups or other arrangements. Such computing devices may be located in a single device or may be distributed in many different geographical locations. For example, the computing environment 403 may include multiple computing devices, which together may include hosted computing resources, grid computing resources, and / or any other distributed computing arrangements. In some cases, the computing environment 403 may correspond to an elastic computing resource, in which the allocated capacity of processing, network, storage, or other computing-related resources may vary over time. For example, the computing environment 403 may correspond to a cloud provider network 203 ( Figure 2A ), where customers are charged based on their usage of computing resources based on a utility computing model.

[0089] In some embodiments, computing environment 403 may correspond to a virtualized private network within a physical network, including, for example, virtual machine instances executed on physical computing hardware through a hypervisor. The virtual machine instances and any containers running on these instances may obtain network connectivity through virtualized network components enabled by physical network components, such as routers and switches.

[0090] According to various embodiments, various applications and / or other functions may be executed in the computing environment 403. In addition, various data are stored in a data storage area 415 accessible to the computing environment 403. It is understood that the data storage area 415 may represent a plurality of data storage areas 415. The data stored in the data storage area 415 is associated with the operation of various applications and / or functional entities described below, for example.

[0091] The computing environment 403, which is part of a cloud provider network that provides utility computing services, includes computing devices 418 and other types of computing devices. The computing devices 418 may correspond to different types of computing devices 418 and may have different computing architectures. The computing architectures may differ by using processors with different architectures, such as x86, x86_64, ARM, Scalable Processor Architecture (SPARC), PowerPC, etc. For example, some computing devices 418 may have x86 processors, while other computing devices 418 may have ARM processors. The computing devices 418 may also differ in available hardware resources, such as local storage, graphics processing units (GPUs), machine learning extensions, and other features.

[0092] The computing device 418 can have various forms of allocated computing capacity 421, which can include virtual machine (VM) instances, containers, serverless functions, and the like. VM instances can be instantiated from VM images. To this end, a customer can specify that a virtual machine instance should be launched in a specific type of computing device 418, but not in other types of computing devices 418. In various examples, a VM instance can be executed alone on a specific computing device 418, or multiple VM instances can be executed on a specific computing device 418. In addition, a specific computing device 418 can execute different types of VM instances, which can provide different amounts of available resources via the computing device 418. For example, some types of VM instances may provide more memory and processing power than other types of VM instances.

[0093] Components executing on computing environment 403 include, for example, a radio-based private network (RBPN) management API 423, RBPN management services 424, radio unit management services 427, and other applications, services, processes, systems, engines, or functions not discussed in detail herein.

[0094] The RBPN management API 423 provides an interface for creating, deploying, activating, managing, updating, deactivating, and deleting the radio-based private network 103. In various embodiments, the RBPN management API 423 may implement functions for creating a site or location, describing a site, deleting a site, updating a site, creating a network plan, describing a network plan, updating a network plan, deleting a network plan, creating a network, describing a network, listing networks associated with a customer, deleting a network, activating a network, creating a data plan, describing a data plan, listing data plans of a network, attaching a SIM or eSIM to a data plan, deleting a data plan, listing SIMs or eSIMs associated with a network, configuring small cells or radio unit installations individually or in batches, and other functions.

[0095] The RBPN management service 424 is executed to manage, configure, and monitor the radio-based private network 103 operated by the cloud service provider on behalf of the customer. To this end, the RBPN management service 424 can generate multiple user interfaces that allow customers to order new radio-based private networks 103, expand or reduce existing radio-based private networks 103, modify the operation of existing radio-based private networks 103, configure wireless devices 106 ( Figure 1A), provide statistics and metrics about the operation of the radio-based private network 103, reserve spectrum for the customer's private network via spectrum reservation service 410, etc. For example, RBPN management service 424 can generate one or more network pages including a user interface, such as a web page. In addition, RBPN management service 424 can support this function through an API that can be called by client application 436. RBPN management service 424 can use RBPN management API 423 to implement various actions. In addition to facilitating interaction with the user, RBPN management service 424 also implements the deployment and configuration changes of radio-based private network 103 and the continuous monitoring of performance parameters. For a specific site 438, RBPN management service 424 can generate a network plan 439 for the customer based at least in part on the specifications of the customer's location in the site 438, an automated site survey of an unmanned aerial vehicle, and / or other input parameters.

[0096] The radio management service 427 is executed to implement provisioning and configuration changes on the hardware that implements the radio-based private network 103. This can include radios, antennas, VM instances or containers that perform network functions, routers, switches, fiber optic terminal equipment, etc. For example, an antenna can be configured to operate at a specific frequency. A radio can be programmed to operate at a specific frequency, join a specific radio-based private network 103, and backhaul traffic to a specific VM instance or container.

[0097] In some scenarios, the radio unit management service 427 is executed to reconfigure hardware that is already present in the radio-based private network 103. In other scenarios, the radio unit management service 427 is executed to preconfigure a set of hardware to be deployed to an existing or new radio-based private network 103. To this end, the radio unit management service 427 can implement configuration on one or more pre-deployment devices 409 that are temporarily connected to the network 412 to facilitate pre-configuration before the pre-deployment devices 409 are shipped to customers for deployment in the radio-based private network 103.

[0098] RBPN management service 424 can also automate and arrange the deployment of hardware to implement radio-based private network 103. Based on the network plan 439 submitted by the customer or generated for the customer, RBPN management service 424 can arrange the purchase of hardware components necessary for implementing radio-based private network 103 from one or more suppliers associated with supplier computing device 408 according to network plan 439. This may involve automatically placing an order to the supplier via supplier computing device 408 to purchase new equipment, retaining equipment already in the provider's inventory, or reallocating equipment that already exists at the customer site or other customer sites (where the equipment to be reallocated is no longer used). In this regard, RBPN management service 424 can send instructions to the customer to return the equipment that is no longer in use, wherein the equipment can be sent directly to other customers for use in another deployment. In another scenario, RBPN management service 424 can send instructions to the customer to move a piece of equipment from a site where the equipment is no longer used to another site where the equipment will be used. RBPN management service 424 can manage the connection of equipment to network 412 to preconfigure as pre-deployment device 409. RBPN management service 424 may also arrange for delivery of equipment to a customer location, including multiple customer locations that may correspond to various cell sites.

[0099] The data stored in the data storage area 415 includes, for example, one or more sites 438, one or more network plans 439, one or more data plans 440, one or more cellular topologies 442, one or more spectrum allocations 445, device data 448, one or more RBPN metrics 451, customer billing data 454, radio unit configuration data 457, antenna configuration data 460, network function configuration data 463, one or more network function workloads 466, one or more customer workloads 469, and possibly other data.

[0100] Site 438 represents the specification of the location where the radio-based private network 103 will be deployed for the customer. In one embodiment, site 438 is created by specifying a site name and address through RBPN management API 423. In other examples, latitude and longitude coordinates can be used. RBPN management API 423 can associate a unique site identifier with site 438.

[0101] The network plan 439 is a specification of a radio-based private network 103 to be deployed for a customer. In various embodiments, the network plan 439 may include one or more identifiers of a site 438, a location, position, or geographic area to be covered, a number of cells, a maximum number of wireless devices 106 per cell, a number of wireless devices 106 or SIMs, device identification information and permissions, a desired measure of edge computing capacity in a radio-based private network 103, a desired maximum network latency, a desired bandwidth or network throughput for one or more classes of devices, one or more quality of service parameters for applications or services, a network address range to be allocated to the wireless device 106, an identifier of the type of spectrum to be used (e.g., Citizen Broadband Radio Service, TV White Space, Licensed Spectrum, etc.), and / or other parameters that can be used to create a radio-based private network 103. The customer may manually specify one or more of these parameters via a user interface or API. One or more parameters may be pre-populated as default parameters. In some cases, the network plan 439 may be generated for the customer based at least in part on an automated site survey using an unmanned aerial vehicle. In some cases, network plan 439 may include thresholds and reference parameters determined at least in part based on automatic detection of the customer's existing private network.

[0102] The data plan 440 may correspond to one or more plans for accessing the radio-based private network 103 from the wireless device 106. The data plan 440 may include a network identifier, a data plan name, an uplink speed, a downlink speed, a unique identifier of the data plan 440, latency requirements, jitter requirements, and / or other data. The parameter values ​​defining the data plan 440 may be used as a basis for billing customers by the cloud service provider under a utility computing model. For example, in a service level agreement (SLA), customers may be charged higher fees for lower latency targets and / or higher bandwidth targets, and customers may be charged per device, per cell, based on a geographic area served, based on spectrum availability, and the like.

[0103] The cellular topology 442 includes an arrangement of multiple cells for customers that takes into account spectrum reuse given the location of the cells. The cellular topology 442 can be automatically generated given a site survey. In some cases, the number of cells in the cellular topology 442 can be automatically determined based on the desired geographic area to be covered, the availability of backhaul connections at various sites, signal propagation, available spectrum, and / or other parameters. For a radio-based private network 103, the cellular topology 442 can be developed to cover one or more buildings on an organizational campus, one or more schools in a school district, one or more buildings in a university or university system, and other areas.

[0104] Spectrum allocation 445 includes spectrum available for allocation to radio-based private network 103 and spectrum currently allocated to radio-based private network 103. Spectrum may include spectrum that is publicly accessible without restriction, spectrum that is personally owned or leased by customers, spectrum that is owned or leased by providers, spectrum that is free to use but requires reservation, etc.

[0105] The device data 448 corresponds to data describing the wireless devices 106 that are allowed to connect to the radio-based private network 103. The device data 448 includes the corresponding user, account information, billing information, data plan 440, allowed applications or uses, an indication of whether the wireless device 106 is mobile or fixed, location, current cell, network address, device identifier (e.g., International Mobile Equipment Identity (IMEI) number, International Mobile Subscriber Identity (IMSI) number, Equipment Serial Number (ESN), Media Access Control (MAC) address, Subscriber Identity Module (SIM) number, Embedded SIM (eSIM) number, etc.), etc.

[0106] RBPN metrics 451 include various metrics or statistics that indicate the performance or health of the radio-based private network 103. Such RBPN metrics 451 may include bandwidth metrics, packet drop metrics, signal strength metrics, latency metrics, etc. RBPN metrics 451 may be aggregated on a per-device basis, a per-cell basis, a per-client basis, etc.

[0107] The customer billing data 454 specifies charges incurred by the customer as a result of the provider operating the radio-based private network 103 for the customer. Charges may include fixed costs based on the equipment deployed to the customer and / or usage costs based on utilization determined by tracked usage metrics. In some cases, the customer may purchase the equipment upfront and may only have to pay for bandwidth or backend network costs. In other cases, the customer may not incur any upfront costs and may be charged only based on usage. By providing equipment to customers based on a utility computing model, the cloud service provider can select the optimal configuration of equipment to meet customer target performance metrics while avoiding over-provisioning of unnecessary hardware.

[0108] The radio unit configuration data 457 may correspond to configuration settings of a radio unit deployed in the radio-based private network 103. Such settings may include the frequency to be used, the protocol to be used, modulation parameters, bandwidth, network routing and / or backhaul configuration, location and altitude of the radio unit, etc.

[0109] Antenna configuration data 460 may correspond to configuration settings for the antenna, including the frequency to be used, azimuth, vertical or horizontal orientation, beam tilt, altitude, and / or other parameters that may be controlled automatically or manually by instructing a user to mount the antenna in a certain manner or to make physical changes to the antenna (e.g., by connecting to a network of motors and controls on the antenna).

[0110] The network function configuration data 463 corresponds to configuration settings for configuring the operation of various network functions for the radio-based private network 103. In various embodiments, the network functions may be deployed in VM instances or containers located in a computing device 418, which is located at a cell site, a customer aggregation site, or a data center remote from the customer. Non-limiting examples of network functions may include access and mobility management functions, session management functions, user plane functions, policy control functions, authentication server functions, unified data management functions, application functions, network exposure functions, network function repositories, network slice selection functions, and / or other functions. The network function workload 466 corresponds to a machine image, container, or function to be launched in the allocated computing capacity 421 to perform one or more network functions.

[0111] Customer workloads 469 correspond to customer machine images, containers, or functions that can be executed in conjunction with or in place of network function workloads 466 in allocated computing capacity 421. For example, customer workloads 469 can provide or support customer applications or services. In various examples, customer workloads 469 relate to factory automation, autonomous robotics, augmented reality, virtual reality, design, monitoring, and the like.

[0112] Client device 406 represents a plurality of client devices 406 that may be coupled to network 412. Client device 406 may include, for example, a processor-based system, such as a computer system. Such a computer system may be embodied in the form of a desktop computer, a laptop computer, a personal digital assistant, a cellular phone, a smart phone, a set-top box, a music player, a webpad, a tablet computer system, a game console, an e-book reader, a smart watch, a head-mounted display, a voice interface device, or other device. Client device 406 may include a display including, for example, one or more devices such as a liquid crystal display (LCD), a gas plasma-based flat panel display, an organic light emitting diode (OLED) display, an electrophoretic ink (E-ink) display, an LCD projector, or other types of display devices, etc.

[0113] The client device 406 may be configured to execute various applications, such as the client application 436 and / or other applications. The client application 436 may be executed in the client device 406, for example, to access network content provided by the computing environment 403 and / or other servers, thereby presenting a user interface on a display. To this end, the client application 436 may include, for example, a browser, a dedicated application, etc., and the user interface may include a network page, an application screen, etc. The client device 406 may be configured to execute applications other than the client application 436, such as, for example, an email application, a social networking application, a word processor, a spreadsheet, and / or other applications.

[0114] In some embodiments, spectrum reservation service 410 provides spectrum reservation for a customer's private network. In one scenario, spectrum reservation service 410 is operated by an entity such as a third party to manage reservations and coexistence in a publicly accessible spectrum. An example of such a spectrum is Citizens Broadband Radio Service (CBRS). In another scenario, spectrum reservation service 410 is operated by a telecommunications service provider to sell or sublicense portions of spectrum owned or licensed by the provider.

[0115] Next reference Figure 5 , shows a flowchart of an example of the operation of providing a portion of the RBPN management service 424 according to various embodiments. It can be understood that Figure 5 The flowchart of is merely an example of many different types of functional arrangements that may be used to implement the operation of portions of the RBPN management service 424 as described herein. Figure 5 The flowchart may be viewed as depicting a computing environment 403 ( Figure 4 ) is an example of an element of a method implemented in ).

[0116] Beginning with block 503, the RBPN management service 424 receives a request for a radio-based private network 103 ( Figure 1A )Create site 438( Figure 4 ) request. The request can be made via the RBPN management API 423 ( Figure 4) or received through a user interface generated by RBPN management service 424. Before receiving the request, RBPN management service 424 can authenticate the access rights of the customer to the account associated with the cloud service provider and ensure that the account can access RBPN management API 423. In this regard, RBPN management service 424 can operate based on the access control system of the cloud service provider. In addition, RBPN management service 424 can integrate one or more additional cloud services provided by the cloud service provider. Therefore, the customer can start a cloud service from the cloud service provider to execute on the edge computing capacity deployed in the radio-based private network 103. In one such example, the customer can utilize the video stream processing service from the cloud service provider to process the video stream captured by the camera on the wireless device 106.

[0117] The request to create site 438 may specify a site name and location in terms of an address or latitude / longitude coordinates. In block 506, RBPN management service 424 generates a unique site identifier and creates site 438. RBPN management service 424 may then return the site identifier to the client.

[0118] In block 507, the RBPN management service 424 receives the create network plan 439 ( Figure 4 ) request. The request may be received via the RBPN management API 423 or through a user interface generated by the RBPN management service 424. For example, the request may specify a network planning name, a wireless device 106 ( Figure 1A ) or SIM cards, the network address range of the wireless devices 106, the number of radio units or cells, the maximum number of wireless devices 106 per cell or radio unit, a measure of edge computing capacity to be deployed at the site 438 (e.g., the number of edge computing devices of a particular type), the type of spectrum to be used (e.g., TV white spaces, CBRS, Wi-Fi, spectrum owned by a communications service provider), and other parameters.

[0119] In block 509, the RBPN management service 424 determines the network plan 439 ( Figure 4) of the radio units. In some cases, the number of radio units may be a customer-provided parameter. Optionally, the RBPN management service 424 may determine the number of radio units based at least in part on the number of wireless devices 106 to be served, the maximum number of wireless devices 106 per radio unit or cell, quality of service parameters, spectrum availability at the site 438, the geographic area to be covered at the site 438, potential interference at the site 438, and / or other factors. The RBPN management service 424 may also determine the type of radio unit; for example, an indoor or outdoor model. In box 512, the RBPN management service 424 generates a unique network plan identifier and creates a network plan 439. The RBPN management service 424 may then return the network plan identifier to the customer.

[0120] In block 515, the RBPN management service 424 receives a request to create a radio-based private network 103. The request may specify an identifier of a site 438, an identifier of a network plan 439, a network type (e.g., 4G, 5G, 6G, Wi-Fi, etc.), a network name, etc. If a network plan 439 is not specified, a default network plan 439 with default parameters may be used.

[0121] In block 518, the RBPN management service 424 generates a unique identifier for the radio-based private network 103 and creates a representation of the radio-based private network 103. The RBPN management service 424 may return to the customer the identifier of the radio-based private network 103. The RBPN management service 424 may also return information such as an estimated time when the radio-based private network 103 will be ready for activation independent of any actions required by the customer to physically plug in and connect the hardware.

[0122] A request to create one or more data plans 440 for the radio-based private network 103 may also be received. Figure 4 ) request. The request may specify a network identifier, a data plan name, an uplink speed, a downlink speed, a maximum delay, a maximum jitter, and / or other parameters. Each wireless device 106 may be associated with a specific data plan 440 in the radio-based private network 103 for quality of service and billing purposes.

[0123] In block 521, the RBPN management service 424 receives a request to activate the radio-based private network 103. The request may specify a unique identifier corresponding to the radio-based private network 103. Upon receiving this request, the RBPN management service 424 may lock the state of the radio-based private network 103 so that no further modifications are allowed while fulfillment and provisioning occur. The RBPN management service 424 may provide status updates to the customer, including the status of any shipment or network, as well as the status of any SIM and its corresponding data plan 440 and IMSI identifier.

[0124] In block 522, RBPN management service 424 may preconfigure hardware for radio-based private network 103 to include radio units, SIMs or eSIMs, edge computing devices including DUs and CUs, routers, network appliances, and / or other hardware. RBPN management service 424 may preconfigure one or more computing devices to serve as cloud provider network 203 ( Figure 2A ) provider underlying extension 224 ( Figure 2A ) to provide edge computing capacity. The RBPN management service 424 can generate orders for hardware such as radio units and SIMs, and then transmit the orders to one or more supplier computing devices 408 ( Figure 4 ). For example, an order for a radio unit may specify the model, quantity, and radio unit management service 427 endpoint. An order for a SIM may specify an IMSI range and quantity. In some embodiments, an eSIM may be utilized in place of a physical SIM. In some cases, manual approval may be required before the order is sent to the vendor. The vendor may return identity provisioning information for configuration, including public / private keys, certificates, and / or endpoint information. Upon receipt of the hardware, the device may connect to a network 412 (as a pre-deployed device 409). Figure 4 ) and configuration settings can be established on the pre-deployed device 409 to implement the radio-based private network 103.

[0125] In block 524, RBPN management service 424 initiates one or more shipments of the radio unit, SIM, and / or other hardware that has been preconfigured for the customer. For example, the shipment may be shipped directly to the address specified in site 438, a shipping label may be generated and the bill of lading transmitted to one or more shipping carriers. In some cases, the shipment may be shipped directly by the supplier.

[0126] In block 527, the RBPN management service 424 provisions one or more computing resources in the cloud provider network 203 to serve as the core network 118 ( Figure 1A). This may be timed to occur before the hardware is delivered to the customer. In some cases, the computing resources of the core network 118 may be provisioned in whole or in part at the edge computing capacity of the customer site within the provider underlay extension 224. The resources may be provisioned in a specific region 306 ( Figure 3A ), and the customer can specify a specific area 306. The amount of resources can be configured based on the data plan 440 and the number of wireless devices 106. As part of provisioning resources, the RBPN management service 424 can provision virtual network links for control plane network traffic of the radio access network at the customer location to the resources in the specific area 306. The radio access network can be configured so that loss of connectivity via the virtual network links for control plane network traffic does not, at least initially, affect connectivity of a wireless device 106 of the radio access network with other wireless devices 103 of the radio access network in the radio access network.

[0127] In block 530, RBPN management service 424 activates radio-based private network 103 in response to a request from a client or in response to detecting that various hardware components have been connected to network 412 at client site 438. At this point, the lock on configuration changes can be unlocked, and the client can submit configuration changes to radio-based private network 130, including updating network planning 439, increasing the number of SIMs, increasing the number of cells, etc. RBPN management service 424 can return a response indicating when activation occurs to the client. After this, the operation of the part of RBPN management service 424 ends.

[0128] Now go to Figure 6 , shows a flow chart providing an example of the operation of a portion of the radio unit management service 427 according to various embodiments. It can be understood that Figure 6 The flowchart of provides only an example of many different types of functional arrangements that may be used to implement the operation of the portion of the radio unit management service 427 as described herein. As an alternative, Figure 6 The flowchart may be viewed as depicting a computing environment 403 ( Figure 4 ) is an example of an element of a method implemented in ).

[0129] Beginning with block 603, the radio unit management service 427 receives an authentication request from a radio unit. For example, the radio unit may have been shipped to a customer for use with a radio-based private network 103 ( Figure 1A ) is used in conjunction with the radio unit management service 427 to contact the radio unit management service 427 through some level of pre-configuration. Once turned on and physically connected to the network, the radio unit communicates with the radio unit management service 427 with an authentication request.

[0130] In block 606, the radio unit management service 427 determines the location of the radio unit. For example, the radio unit may provide a set of coordinates (latitude and longitude) to the radio unit management service 427. The radio unit may include a global positioning system (GPS) or similar device to automatically determine the location. The radio unit may also provide an altitude.

[0131] In block 609, the radio unit management service 427 may communicate with the spectrum reservation service 410 ( Figure 4 ) to reserve spectrum for use by the radio unit at the location. For example, the radio unit management service 427 can send a request to reserve one or more CBRS frequencies or TV white space frequencies for the radio unit. In some embodiments, the radio unit management service 427 can dynamically update one or more parameters stored on the radio unit so that the radio unit can communicate directly with the spectrum reservation service 410 to reserve spectrum. For example, the radio unit management service 427 can establish or configure one or more parameters related to channel bandwidth, frequency, neighboring cell information, information to assist the wireless device 106 in roaming, and / or other parameters on the radio unit. The radio unit management service 427 can configure the radio unit with one or more parameters that enable the radio unit to communicate with the spectrum reservation service 410.

[0132] In block 612, the radio unit management service 427 may provide a radio unit management service to the core network 118 ( Figure 1A ) configures one or more endpoints. For example, such endpoints may be configured for an access mobility function (AMF) or a mobility management entity (MME) in the core network 118. In other embodiments where the radio is an access point to a Wi-Fi type network, the radio management service 427 may instead configure the access point with certificate-based identity management to manage connections. In block 615, the radio management service 427 activates the radio on the radio access network of the radio-based private network 103. Thereafter, the operation of the portion of the radio management service 427 ends.

[0133] refer to Figure 7 , a schematic block diagram of a computing environment 403 according to an embodiment of the present disclosure is shown. The computing environment 403 includes one or more computing devices 700. Each computing device 700 includes at least one processor circuit, for example, having a processor 703 and a memory 706, both of which are coupled to a local interface 709. To this end, each computing device 700 may include, for example, at least one server computer or similar device. The local interface 709 may include, for example, a data bus with an accompanying address / control bus or other bus structure that can be understood.

[0134] Stored in the memory 706 are data and several components executable by the processor 703. Specifically, stored in the memory 706 and executable by the processor 703 are RBPN management API 423, RBPN management service 424, radio unit management service 427 and possibly other applications. Stored in the memory 706 may also be data storage area 415 and other data. In addition, an operating system may be stored in the memory 706 and may be executed by the processor 703.

[0135] It should be understood that there may be other applications stored in the memory 706 and executable by the processor 703. Where any of the components discussed herein are implemented in software, any of a variety of programming languages ​​may be employed, such as, for example, C, C++, C#, Objective C, Perl, PHP, Visual Ruby, or other programming languages.

[0136] Many software components are stored in the memory 706 and can be executed by the processor 703. In this regard, the term "executable" refers to a program file in a form that can ultimately be run by the processor 703. Examples of executable programs can be, for example, compiled programs that can be translated into the following codes: machine code, whose format can be loaded into the random access portion of the memory 706 and run by the processor 703; source code, which can be expressed in an appropriate format, such as object code that can be loaded into the random access portion of the memory 706 and executed by the processor 703; or source code, which can be interpreted by another executable program to generate instructions in the random access portion of the memory 706 to be executed by the processor 703, etc. The executable program can be stored in any part or component of the memory 706, including, for example, random access memory (RAM), read-only memory (ROM), hard disk drive, solid state drive, USB flash drive, memory card, optical disk such as compact disk (CD) or digital versatile disk (DVD), floppy disk, tape, or other storage component.

[0137] The memory 706 is defined herein as including volatile and non-volatile memory and data storage components. Volatile components are those components that do not retain data values ​​when the power is off. Non-volatile components are those components that retain data when the power is off. Therefore, the memory 706 may include, for example, random access memory (RAM), read-only memory (ROM), hard disk drive, solid state drive, USB flash drive, memory card accessed via a memory card reader, floppy disk accessed via an associated floppy disk drive, optical disk accessed via an optical drive, magnetic tape accessed via an appropriate tape drive, and / or other memory components, or any combination of two or more of these memory components. In addition, RAM may include, for example, static random access memory (SRAM), dynamic random access memory (DRAM) or magnetic random access memory (MRAM) and other such devices. ROM may include, for example, programmable read-only memory (PROM), erasable programmable read-only memory (EPROM), electrically erasable programmable read-only memory (EEPROM) or other similar memory devices.

[0138] In addition, the processor 703 may represent multiple processors 703 and / or multiple processor cores, and the memory 706 may represent multiple memories 706 operating in parallel processing circuits, respectively. In this case, the local interface 709 may be an appropriate network that facilitates communication between any two of the multiple processors 703, between any processor 703 and the memory 706, or between any two of the memories 706, etc. The local interface 709 may include additional systems designed to coordinate the communication, including, for example, performing load balancing. The processor 703 may be electrical or some other usable structure.

[0139] Although the RBPN management API 423, RBPN management service 424, radio unit management service 427 and other various systems described herein may be embodied in software or code executed by general hardware as described above, they may alternatively be embodied in dedicated hardware or a combination of software / general hardware and dedicated hardware. If embodied in dedicated hardware, each may be implemented as a circuit or state machine using any one or combination of a variety of technologies. These technologies may include, but are not limited to, discrete logic circuits with logic gates for implementing various logic functions when one or more data signals are applied, application specific integrated circuits (ASICs) with appropriate logic gates, field programmable gate arrays (FPGAs), or other components, etc. Such technologies are generally well known to those skilled in the art and are therefore not described in detail herein.

[0140] Figure 5 to Figure 6The flowcharts illustrate the functionality and operation of an implementation of portions of the RBPN management service 424 and the radio unit management service 427. If embodied in software, each block may represent a module, segment, or portion of code that includes program instructions for implementing a specified logical function. The program instructions may be embodied in the form of source code that includes human-readable statements written in a programming language, or in the form of machine code that includes digital instructions recognizable by a suitable execution system such as a processor 703 in a computer system or other system. The machine code may be converted from source code, etc. If embodied in hardware, each block may represent a circuit or multiple interconnected circuits to implement a specified logical function.

[0141] although Figure 5 to Figure 6 The flowcharts of the embodiment of the present invention show a specific order of execution, but it is understood that the order of execution may be different from the order depicted. For example, the order of execution of two or more blocks may be disrupted relative to the order shown. In addition, Figure 5 to Figure 6 Two or more blocks shown in succession in the embodiment may be executed simultaneously or partially simultaneously. In addition, in some embodiments, Figure 5 to Figure 6 One or more of the shown boxes may be skipped or omitted. In addition, any number of counters, state variables, warning semaphores or messages may be added to the logic flow described herein for purposes such as enhanced utility, accounting, performance measurement or providing troubleshooting assistance. It is understood that all such variations are within the scope of the present disclosure.

[0142] In addition, any logic or application including software or code described herein (including RBPN management API 423, RBPN management service 424, and radio unit management service 427) can be embodied in any non-transitory computer-readable medium for use by or in conjunction with an instruction execution system (such as, for example, processor 703 in a computer system or other system). In this sense, logic can include, for example, statements including instructions and declarations that can be extracted from a computer-readable medium and executed by an instruction execution system. In the context of the present disclosure, "computer-readable medium" can be any medium that can contain, store, or maintain the logic or application described herein for use by or in conjunction with an instruction execution system.

[0143] Computer readable media may include any of a number of physical media, such as, for example, magnetic, optical, or semiconductor media. More specific examples of suitable computer readable media would include, but are not limited to, magnetic tape, magnetic floppy disk, magnetic hard drive, memory card, solid state drive, USB flash drive, or optical disk. In addition, the computer readable medium may be a random access memory (RAM), including, for example, a static random access memory (SRAM) and a dynamic random access memory (DRAM), or a magnetic random access memory (MRAM). In addition, the computer readable medium may be a read-only memory (ROM), a programmable read-only memory (PROM), an erasable programmable read-only memory (EPROM), an electrically erasable programmable read-only memory (EEPROM), or other types of memory devices.

[0144] In addition, any logic or application described herein (including RBPN management API 423, RBPN management service 424 and radio unit management service 427) can be implemented and structured in a variety of ways. For example, one or more applications described can be implemented as a module or component of a single application. In addition, one or more applications described herein can be executed in a shared or separate computing device or its combination. For example, multiple applications described herein can be executed in the same computing device 700, or in multiple computing devices 700 in the same computing environment 403.

[0145] Unless otherwise specifically stated, disjunctive language such as the phrase "at least one of X, Y, or Z" should be understood in context as being generally used to present an item, term, etc. that can be X, Y, or Z, or any combination thereof (e.g., X, Y, and / or Z). Thus, such disjunctive language is generally not intended to, and should not, imply that certain embodiments require the presence of at least one of X, at least one of Y, or at least one of Z, respectively.

[0146] It should be emphasized that the above-mentioned embodiments of the present disclosure are merely possible implementation examples set forth for a clear understanding of the principles of the present disclosure. Many changes and modifications may be made to the above-mentioned embodiments without substantially departing from the spirit and principles of the present disclosure. In this article, all such modifications and changes are intended to be included within the scope of the present disclosure and are protected by the appended claims.

[0147] Illustrative embodiments of the present disclosure are set forth in the following clauses. Although the following clauses describe some potential implementations, other implementations can also be implemented using the principles of the present disclosure.

[0148] Clause 1 - A system comprising: a cloud provider network comprising a plurality of regions; and at least one computing device in the cloud provider network that implements a dedicated 5G network management service, the at least one computing device being configured to at least: receive a request from a customer via an interface to create a dedicated 5G network for the customer, the request specifying a number of wireless devices to be connected to the dedicated 5G network; determine a number of radio units for the dedicated 5G network based at least in part on the number of wireless devices; preconfigure a plurality of radio units corresponding to the number of radio units to implement a radio access network for the dedicated 5G network; preconfigure a plurality of subscriber identity modules (SIMs) corresponding to the number of wireless devices for the radio access network; initiate delivery of the plurality of radio units and the plurality of SIMs that have been preconfigured to the customer; and provision one or more resources in a particular area of ​​the plurality of regions of the cloud provider network to act as a core network for the dedicated 5G network.

[0149] Clause 2 - A system according to clause 1, wherein the at least one computing device is further configured to configure at least one or more parameters regarding a particular radio unit among the plurality of radio units so as to cause spectrum to be reserved for the particular radio unit from a spectrum registration service based at least in part on a location of the particular radio unit.

[0150] Clause 3 – A system as described in clause 1 or 2, wherein the request specifies a measure of edge computing capacity to be provided in the private 5G network.

[0151] Clause 4 - A computer-implemented method comprising: receiving, via an interface, a request to create a radio-based private network for a customer, the request indicating a number of wireless devices to be connected to the radio-based private network; determining a number of multiple radio units to serve the radio-based private network based at least in part on the number of wireless devices; preconfiguring the multiple radio units to implement a radio access network for the radio-based private network; initiating delivery of the multiple radio units that have been preconfigured to the customer; and provisioning one or more resources in a cloud provider network to act as a core network for the radio-based private network.

[0152] Clause 5 – A computer-implemented method according to clause 4, wherein the request also indicates a measure of edge computing capacity requested for the radio-based private network, and the method further comprises: pre-configuring at least one computing device to provide the edge computing capacity in the radio-based private network as a provider underlay extension of the cloud provider network; and initiating delivery of the at least one computing device to the customer.

[0153] Clause 6 - A computer-implemented method according to clause 5, further comprising: preconfiguring the at least one computing device to implement at least one radio access network function for one or more of the plurality of radio units; and preconfiguring the at least one computing device to communicate with the one or more resources in the cloud provider network that act as the core network.

[0154] Clause 7—The computer-implemented method of clause 4 or 5, further comprising reserving radio spectrum for the radio-based private network via a spectrum reservation service based at least in part on the location specified in the request.

[0155] Clause 8 – A computer-implemented method according to any of clauses 4 to 7, wherein the one or more resources are located in a region of the cloud provider network, and the method further comprises provisioning virtual network links for control plane network traffic from the radio access network to the one or more resources in the region.

[0156] Clause 9 - The computer-implemented method of clause 8, further comprising configuring the radio access network such that loss of connectivity via the virtual network link does not initially affect connectivity of one or more connections in the radio access network between the number of wireless devices of the radio access network.

[0157] Clause 10 - The computer-implemented method of any of clauses 4 to 9, further comprising initiating shipment of a plurality of Subscriber Identity Modules (SIMs) preconfigured for the radio-based private network for the number of wireless devices to the customer.

[0158] Clause 11 - A computer-implemented method according to any one of clauses 4 to 10, further comprising: receiving, via the interface, a request to create a location for the customer at an address for deploying the radio-based private network; generating a unique location identifier based at least in part on the address; returning the unique location identifier to the customer via the interface; and wherein the request to create the radio-based private network specifies the unique location identifier.

[0159] Clause 12 - The computer-implemented method of any of clauses 4 to 11, further comprising: authenticating the customer's access to an account with a cloud service provider operating the cloud provider network; and verifying that the account has permission to create the radio-based private network.

[0160] Clause 13 - A computer-implemented method according to any one of clauses 4 to 12, further comprising: receiving, via the interface, a designation of a specific region among multiple regions in the cloud provider network; and wherein in response to the designation of the specific region, provisioning the one or more resources in the specific region of the cloud provider network.

[0161] Clause 14 - A non-transitory computer-readable medium embodying a program capable of being executed in at least one computing device, wherein the program, when executed, causes the at least one computing device to at least: receive, via an interface, a request to create a radio-based private network for a customer, the request indicating a network plan, the network plan including a number of wireless devices to be connected to the radio-based private network and a number of radio units for the radio-based private network; preconfigure a plurality of radio units corresponding to the number of radio units to implement a radio access network for the radio-based private network; preconfigure a plurality of subscriber identity modules (SIMs) corresponding to the number of wireless devices for the radio access network; initiate delivery of the plurality of radio units and the plurality of SIMs that have been preconfigured to the customer; and provision one or more resources in a cloud provider network to act as a core network for the radio-based private network.

[0162] Clause 15—The non-transitory computer-readable medium of Clause 14, wherein the interface corresponds to an application programming interface (API).

[0163] Clause 16—The non-transitory computer-readable medium of Clause 14 or 15, wherein the interface corresponds to a graphical user interface.

[0164] Clause 17 - A non-transitory computer-readable medium as described in any of clauses 14 to 16, wherein the program, when executed, also causes the at least one computing device to at least: generate an order for one or more of the plurality of radio units; and transmit the order for the one or more of the plurality of radio units to one or more supplier computing devices.

[0165] Clause 18—The non-transitory computer-readable medium of Clause 17, wherein the program, when executed, further causes the at least one computing device to receive at least a list of serial numbers corresponding to the one or more of the plurality of radios from the one or more vendor computing devices.

[0166] Clause 19 - The non-transitory computer-readable medium of any of Clauses 14 to 18, wherein the program, when executed, further causes the at least one computing device to at least prevent changes to the configuration of the radio-based private network via the interface until the transport is effected.

[0167] Clause 20 - A non-transitory computer-readable medium as described in any of clauses 14 to 19, wherein the program, when executed, also causes the at least one computing device to at least: receive an authentication request from a particular radio unit among the plurality of radio units; determine the location of the particular radio unit; reserve spectrum for the particular radio unit from a spectrum registration service based at least in part on the location; and configure one or more endpoints for the core network on the particular radio unit.

Claims

1. A system for a radio-based private network, comprising: A cloud provider network, which consists of multiple regions, wherein the cloud provider network includes at least one computing device that implements a dedicated 5G network management service, the dedicated 5G network management service being configured to at least: receiving, via an interface, a request from a customer to create a private 5G network for the customer, the request specifying a number of wireless devices to connect to the private 5G network; determining a number of radio units for the private 5G network based at least in part on the number of wireless devices; pre-configuring a plurality of radio units corresponding to the number of radio units to implement a radio access network for the private 5G network; pre-configuring a plurality of Subscriber Identity Modules (SIMs) corresponding to the number of wireless devices for the radio access network; initiating shipment of the plurality of radio units and the plurality of SIMs that have been pre-configured to the customer; determining a specific area among the plurality of areas based at least in part on at least one of: a designation of the specific area by the customer, or a network latency between the radio access network and the specific area; as well as One or more resources are provisioned in the specific area of ​​the multiple areas of the cloud provider network to serve as a core network for the private 5G network.

2. A system according to claim 1, wherein the at least one computing device is further configured to configure at least one or more parameters regarding a specific radio unit among the multiple radio units so that spectrum is reserved for the specific radio unit from a spectrum registration service based at least in part on the location of the specific radio unit.

3. The system of claim 1 , wherein the request specifies a measure of edge computing capacity to be provided in the private 5G network.

4. The system of claim 1 , wherein the dedicated 5G network management service is further configured to provision a virtual network link for at least control plane network traffic from the radio access network to the one or more resources in the specific area.

5. A computer-implemented method comprising: receiving, via an interface, a request to create a private radio-based network for a client, the request indicating a number of wireless devices to be connected to the private radio-based network; determining a number of a plurality of radio units serving the radio-based private network based at least in part on the number of wireless devices; pre-configuring the plurality of radio units to implement a radio access network for the radio-based private network; initiating shipment of the plurality of radio units that have been preconfigured to the customer; determining a specific region among a plurality of regions in a cloud provider network based at least in part on at least one of: a designation of the specific region in the request, or a network latency between the radio access network and the specific region; as well as One or more resources are provisioned in the specific area of ​​the cloud provider network to serve as a core network for the radio-based private network.

6. The computer-implemented method of claim 5, wherein the request further indicates a measure of edge computing capacity requested for the radio-based private network, and the method further comprises: pre-configuring at least one computing device to provide the edge computing capacity in the radio-based private network as a provider underlay extension of the cloud provider network; as well as Shipping of the at least one computing device to the customer is initiated.

7. The computer-implemented method of claim 6, further comprising: preconfiguring the at least one computing device to implement at least one radio access network function for one or more of the plurality of radio units; as well as The at least one computing device is preconfigured to communicate with the one or more resources in the cloud provider network that function as the core network.

8. The computer-implemented method of claim 5, further comprising reserving radio spectrum for the radio-based private network via a spectrum reservation service based at least in part on the location specified in the request.

9. The computer-implemented method of claim 5, further comprising provisioning a virtual network link for control plane network traffic from the radio access network to the one or more resources in the particular area.

10. The computer-implemented method of claim 9, further comprising configuring the radio access network such that loss of connectivity via the virtual network link does not affect connectivity of one or more connections in the radio access network between the number of wireless devices of the radio access network.

11. The computer-implemented method of claim 5, further comprising initiating shipment to the customer of a plurality of Subscriber Identity Modules (SIMs) preconfigured for the radio-based private network for the number of wireless devices.

12. The computer-implemented method of claim 5, further comprising: receiving, via the interface, a request to create a location for the customer at an address at which to deploy the radio-based private network; generating a unique location identifier based at least in part on the address; returning the unique location identifier to the client via the interface; and Wherein the request to create the radio-based private network specifies the unique location identifier.

13. The computer-implemented method of claim 5, further comprising: authenticating the customer's access to an account with a cloud service provider operating the cloud provider network; as well as Verifying that the account has permission to create the radio-based private network.

14. A non-transitory computer-readable medium comprising a program executable in at least one computing device, wherein the program, when executed, causes the at least one computing device to at least: receiving, via an interface, a request to create a radio-based private network for a customer, the request indicating a network plan including a number of wireless devices to be connected to the radio-based private network and a number of radio units to be used for the radio-based private network; preconfiguring a plurality of radio units corresponding to the number of radio units to implement a radio access network for the radio-based private network; pre-configuring a plurality of Subscriber Identity Modules (SIMs) corresponding to the number of wireless devices for the radio access network; initiating shipment of the plurality of radio units and the plurality of SIMs that have been pre-configured to the customer; determining a specific region among a plurality of regions of a cloud provider network based at least in part on at least one of: a designation of the specific region in the request, or a network latency between the radio access network and the specific region; as well as One or more resources are provisioned in the specific area of ​​the cloud provider network to serve as a core network for the radio-based private network.

15. The non-transitory computer-readable medium of claim 14, wherein the interface corresponds to an application programming interface (API).

16. The non-transitory computer-readable medium of claim 14, wherein the interface corresponds to a graphical user interface.

17. The non-transitory computer readable medium of claim 14, wherein the program, when executed, further causes the at least one computing device to at least: generating an order for one or more of the plurality of radio units; and The order for the one or more of the plurality of radios is transmitted to one or more supplier computing devices.

18. The non-transitory computer-readable medium of claim 17, wherein the program, when executed, further causes the at least one computing device to receive at least a list of serial numbers corresponding to the one or more of the plurality of radios from the one or more vendor computing devices.

19. The non-transitory computer-readable medium of claim 14, wherein the program, when executed, further causes the at least one computing device to at least prevent changes to the configuration of the radio-based private network via the interface until the transport is effected.

20. The non-transitory computer-readable medium of claim 14, wherein the program, when executed, further causes the at least one computing device to at least: receiving an authentication request from a particular radio unit among the plurality of radio units; determining a location of the particular radio unit; reserving spectrum from a spectrum registration service for the particular radio unit based at least in part on the location; as well as One or more endpoints are configured for the core network on the particular radio unit.

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