RAN Cluster Failover for Virtualized DU Control Plane Failures
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Solution Overview
Problem
Existing telecommunications systems with virtualized, containerized DUs face significant downtime due to pod or control plane failures, which can last for hours or days, impairing the RAN until manual intervention occurs.
Innovation Solution
Implement a redundant server architecture with active and standby pods and control planes, utilizing heartbeat messages for monitoring and automatic failover, managed by an orchestrator application, to ensure continuous operation and rapid recovery from failures.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If manual intervention is used to address pod or control plane failures, then system complexity is reduced, but downtime increases to hours or days
Solution Approach 1:
The system pre-configures standby pods and control planes before failures occur. When a failure is detected, the pre-prepared standby components are immediately activated, eliminating the need for manual intervention and reducing downtime from hours/days to minutes.
Solution Approach 2:
The system implements automatic self-healing through heartbeat monitoring and automated failover mechanisms. When a pod or control plane fails, the system automatically detects the failure, activates standby components, and restores service without human intervention, significantly improving reliability and reducing downtime.
2Reliability
If redundant server architecture with automatic failover is implemented, then system reliability improves, but device complexity increases
Solution Approach 1:
The system divides the DU functionality into separate pods and control planes that can run independently on different servers. This segmentation allows individual components to fail without taking down the entire system, and enables granular failover at the pod level rather than requiring complete system redundancy.
Solution Approach 2:
The system creates simplified copies of pods and control planes as standby instances. These copies are lightweight and can be rapidly deployed from templates or images, reducing the complexity of managing full redundant systems while still providing effective failover capability.
3Reliability
If multiple pods are instantiated across multiple servers, then system resilience improves, but manufacturing precision requirements increase
Solution Approach 1:
The system uses universal pod templates and standardized configurations that can be deployed across multiple servers. This allows identical or near-identical pod instances to be created from the same blueprint, ensuring consistency while enabling deployment across heterogeneous hardware platforms.
Solution Approach 2:
The system manages pod configurations through parameterized templates where specific parameters (server identifiers, network endpoints, resource allocations) are automatically adjusted during deployment. This maintains configuration consistency across multiple instances while adapting to the specific environment of each server.
Data Source
AI summary
Techniques for cluster failure management in telecommunications systems are provided. In one example, a cellular network includes: a base station comprising a radio unit; a first server in communication with the radio unit having a pod performing distributed unit functions and a control plane to manage execution of the pod executing thereon; a second server in communication with the radio unit; and an orchestration server system in communication with both servers. The orchestration server system executes an orchestrator application that monitors execution of the control plane and activates a new instance of the control plane on the second server in response to determining that the control plane is no longer executing on the first server.