SPDX-License-Identifier: Apache-2.0
Copyright (c) 2022 Intel Corporation

Intel Software Modules for 5G UPF with Intel® Smart Edge Open

As part of the growing network edge to deliver the right latency and bandwidth, Intel offers a set of software modules with Intel® Smart Edge Open to accelerate 5G user plane function (UPF) workload capabilities. These software modules are fully optimized on Intel® Xeon® processors and offer the following key benefits to software developers for their service offerings:

• Optimized UPF deployment in an on-premises or network infrastructure edge.
• Ease of development for 5G UPF services taking full advantage of the abstracted underlying edge hardware infrastructure.
• Reduced time to market by utilizing easily consumable optimized source code.

These software modules are highly optimized graph nodes for a vector packet processing (VPP)-based 5G Core UPF solution that leverages the features and benefits of Intel® Xeon® CPUs. Software modules are currently available for DNS cache, application detection, and header enrichment, with more to come.

DNS Cache: The DNS Cache for 5G Core UPF module is designed to run in a 5G Core network, specifically the user plane function. It speeds up the delivery of DNS requests, reduces overall DNS traffic throughout the core network, gives greater control and flexibility to resolve domain names, and stops domain spoofing.

Application Detection: The Application Detection for 5G Core UPF module enhances the existing application detection capability by allowing the inspection of TLS1.1/1.2 packets to determine the destination of the traffic and the nature of the application.

Header Enrichment: The Header Enrichment Module for 5G Core UPF module enriches upstream HTTP headers with subscriber-based information, allowing upstream elements to provide value-added services based on a subscriber profile.

The software modules are licensed and consist of source code that is easily consumable by network software vendors and developers offering an easier path to enhance the UPF performance and bring enhanced capabilities to market faster.