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Setup and Prerequisites

Before building your O-RAN telemetry pipeline, ensure you have the required infrastructure components and access permissions.

Infrastructure Requirements​

Expanso Edge Platform​

  • Expanso Edge v2.1+ installed on OpenShift SNO nodes
  • Minimum resources: 2 CPU cores, 4GB RAM per pipeline
  • Storage: 100GB local storage for buffering (NVMe preferred)
  • Network: Access to DU management interfaces and external destinations

OpenShift Single Node OpenShift (SNO)​

  • OpenShift v4.12+ with SNO configuration
  • Node placement: Co-located with RAN workloads for minimal latency
  • Security context: Expanso Edge operator with appropriate RBAC
  • Storage classes: Local storage for buffering, network storage for long-term retention

Observability Stack​

  • Grafana v9.0+ with dashboard import capability
  • OTEL Collector v0.70+ with Prometheus exporter
  • Prometheus v2.40+ with remote write configured
  • Alert Manager (optional) for PTP compliance notifications

Analytics Platform​

Choose one or more destinations:

Option 1: Cloudera Data Platform (CDP)​

  • CDP v7.2+ with Cloudera Data Flow (CDF)
  • Kafka endpoint for real-time ingestion
  • HDFS/S3 access for Parquet storage
  • Schema Registry for schema evolution

Option 2: Object Storage + Analytics​

  • S3/MinIO/HDFS for Parquet storage
  • Kafka for streaming analytics
  • Apache Spark or similar for batch processing

Data Source Access​

DU Telemetry Endpoints​

Configure access to O-RAN DU telemetry:

# Option 1: File-based collection
# Mount DU telemetry files to pipeline
/mnt/du-telemetry/
├── ptp4l_offset.log      # PTP timing data
├── cpu_metrics.log       # System performance
├── prb_utilization.log   # Resource block usage
└── rf_measurements.log   # Radio measurements

# Option 2: API-based collection  
# HTTP endpoints for real-time polling
curl http://du-001.oran.local:8080/api/v1/metrics/ptp
curl http://du-001.oran.local:8080/api/v1/metrics/prb
curl http://du-001.oran.local:8080/api/v1/metrics/system

Network Connectivity​

  • DU Management Network: Access to O-RAN management plane
  • External Egress: HTTPS/443 for Grafana, Kafka ports for Cloudera
  • Internal Communication: Pod-to-pod within OpenShift cluster
  • DNS Resolution: External service discovery for cloud destinations

Credentials and Authentication​

Service Accounts​

Create dedicated service accounts for secure access:

# Grafana/OTEL authentication
apiVersion: v1
kind: Secret
metadata:
  name: grafana-credentials
  namespace: expanso-pipelines
data:
  username: <base64-encoded>
  password: <base64-encoded>
  endpoint: <base64-encoded>

---
# Cloudera credentials
apiVersion: v1
kind: Secret
metadata:
  name: cloudera-credentials
  namespace: expanso-pipelines
data:
  kafka_bootstrap: <base64-encoded>
  kafka_username: <base64-encoded>
  kafka_password: <base64-encoded>
  schema_registry_url: <base64-encoded>

DU Authentication​

Configure authentication for DU telemetry access:

# DU API credentials
apiVersion: v1
kind: Secret
metadata:
  name: du-telemetry-credentials
  namespace: expanso-pipelines
data:
  api_key: <base64-encoded>
  client_cert: <base64-encoded>
  client_key: <base64-encoded>

Storage Configuration​

Local Buffer Storage​

Configure local storage for edge resilience:

apiVersion: v1
kind: PersistentVolumeClaim
metadata:
  name: oran-buffer-storage
  namespace: expanso-pipelines
spec:
  accessModes:
    - ReadWriteOnce
  resources:
    requests:
      storage: 100Gi
  storageClassName: local-nvme

Parquet Output Storage​

Set up storage for long-term Parquet files:

apiVersion: v1
kind: PersistentVolumeClaim
metadata:
  name: oran-parquet-storage
  namespace: expanso-pipelines
spec:
  accessModes:
    - ReadWriteMany
  resources:
    requests:
      storage: 1Ti
  storageClassName: nfs-storage

Validation Checklist​

Before proceeding to data collection, verify:

  • Expanso Edge operator running on OpenShift SNO
  • DU telemetry endpoints accessible from pipeline pods
  • Grafana/OTEL stack configured and healthy
  • Cloudera/Analytics platform credentials tested
  • Local storage available for buffering (greater than 100GB free)
  • Network connectivity to all destinations verified
  • Service account permissions configured

Environment Variables​

Set required environment variables for the pipeline:

# DU Configuration
export DU_ENDPOINT="http://du-001.oran.local:8080"
export DU_API_KEY="your-du-api-key"

# Grafana/OTEL Configuration
export OTEL_ENDPOINT="http://otel-collector:4318"
export GRAFANA_ENDPOINT="http://grafana:3000"

# Cloudera Configuration
export KAFKA_BOOTSTRAP="cloudera-kafka:9092"
export SCHEMA_REGISTRY_URL="http://schema-registry:8081"

# Storage Configuration
export BUFFER_PATH="/data/buffer"
export PARQUET_PATH="/data/oran-telemetry"

Next Steps​

With prerequisites in place, you're ready to collect O-RAN metrics from your DU nodes.