In a world that increasingly depends on digital connections, network as a service (NaaS) has emerged as a game-changing technology. By making network functionalities available as on-demand services across the ecosystem, NaaS empowers developers to build applications that dynamically leverage network resources without needing deep knowledge of the underlying infrastructure. However, as powerful as NaaS is, the process of onboarding developers to access these services remains complex and often inefficient.
To address these challenges, Charter Communications presented a federated approach — the Federated Developer Portal (FDP) — that CableLabs introduced at SCTE TechExpo 2024. The FDP represents a forward-thinking solution that simplifies NaaS access across multiple network operators. This federated model creates a streamlined, secure and scalable environment that allows application developers and operators to collaborate with ease.
The Current Challenges of NaaS at Scale
Although the NaaS APIs that enable developers to create innovative applications are standardized, the processes of onboarding developers and managing applications are not. Because of the current structure, developers must navigate a patchwork of requirements and systems specific to each operator:
- Per-operator onboarding. Developers are often required to individually register and gain approval with each network operator. This process is labor-intensive, repetitive and vulnerable to delay.
- Decentralized integration requirements. Integrating with APIs on a per-operator basis results in diverse, sometimes incompatible processes, creating technical overhead for developers and delaying time to market.
- Single point of failure in centralized systems. When using a centralized model for managing NaaS access, all governance and management operations flow through one system. This approach increases the risk of single points of failure, which can lead to service interruptions or more impactful security vulnerabilities.
Considering these challenges, a federated solution is ideal — one where application developers can register with a consortium of network operators that interoperate at the governance level to manage application developers, applications and their access without compromising trust within the ecosystem. A federated approach offers a resilient, scalable solution that maintains the autonomy of each network operator while giving developers a unified interface for onboarding and management.
What Is the FDP?
The FDP provides a secure, federated platform where network operators and developers interact seamlessly. With FDP, developers can access NaaS capabilities from multiple operators through a single portal, significantly reducing the complexity of onboarding and integration, as well as enabling industry-wide scale. Behind the scenes, trust is maintained through identities based on public key infrastructure (PKI) and the use of digital signatures.
Figure 1: Sample FDP service catalog, from the developer’s perspective
Here are the key features of the FDP:
- Unified interaction point. Network operators and developers have a single, user-friendly interface for application registration, service browsing and management.
- Aggregated service catalogs. Each operator publishes an up-to-date catalog of its available APIs and services, allowing developers to view and select those that suit their applications. This catalog provides essential details, such as API capabilities and supported use cases, giving developers a clear view of network options. Figure 1 provides a sample view of collected service catalogs in our implementation.
- Federated access and approval. Operators retain control over their infrastructure but can securely share service catalogs and API access within the FDP. When developers onboard and submit applications, approval workflows enable each operator to review and approve applications according to its policies, ensuring that only authenticated and authorized applications gain access to network resources.
- Maintained trust. Trust in consortium data is maintained with digital signatures backed by PKI to provide consortium-wide assurance of data integrity and authenticity.
- Modularity. The key components that perform data propagation — the federated agent and the Data Propagation Layer (DPL) — offer an abstraction that enables various propagation technologies, including event streaming, distributed ledgers and more. CableLabs’ key contribution is the definition of governance APIs, which enable flexibility in operator deployment strategy.
An Overview of the FDP Architecture
Figure 2 provides a high-level component view of our implementation.
Figure 2: Overview of the FDP architecture
In brief, each network operator deploys a traditional REST API and web interface that application developers can interact with, as well as the components that facilitate data propagation:
- Our DPL is built with Kafka, where governance operations are propagated as events sent to each network operator’s Kafka broker.
- The federated agent is the key element that exposes our governance APIs and enables modularity of the DPL. As the figure shows, the federated agent facilitates propagation by exchanging data with the Kafka layer.
An Example of the Federated Data Flow
Let’s walk through a high-level example of data propagation through the consortium. Imagine that a developer is registering an application with the consortium of network operators through the FDP, as Figure 3 illustrates.
Figure 3: Sample FDP application submission
- Application submission. The developer submits information about his or her application, including which APIs it will leverage. During this step, the developer can see the reach of that application through an informative display of the aggregated service catalogs that the developer has access to. The figure depicts the application submission form of our FDP implementation.
- Consortium data propagation. The submitted information about the new application is propagated to the other network operators via the federated agent and DPL, ensuring that all network operators receive the updated data.
- Approval flow. All network operators have an opportunity to review and approve the new application when it’s received by their deployment.
Key Benefits of the Federated Developer Portal
By adopting the FDP model, both network operators and developers benefit in multiple ways:
- Reduced complexity for developers. Instead of handling onboarding and API integration separately with each operator, developers interact with a single federated system. This one-stop approach allows them to focus on application innovation rather than logistics management.
- Reduced complexity for operators. Operators establish and maintain relationships with a growing number of developers using a single, consistent process, unlocking the full potential of NaaS at scale.
- Increased resiliency for operators. The FDP’s distributed nature eliminates risks tied to single points of failure. Each operator can maintain autonomous operations, ensuring that system outages or vulnerabilities in one part do not affect the entire ecosystem.
- Distributed centralization. The FDP combines the best of both worlds by providing a centralized interface without compromising the decentralized nature of each operator’s control over its infrastructure.
The Future of the FDP
Although the FDP already addresses key challenges, the platform will continue to evolve. Future iterations aim to support advanced provisioning, offer enhanced metadata within service catalogs and improve governance features for seamless operator and developer collaboration.
Possible enhancements on the horizon include:
- Expanded metadata for service catalogs. Adding more detailed descriptions within catalogs will enable developers to choose services more effectively, considering factors such as network capacity, quality tiers and geographic availability.
- Standardized governance APIs. Establishing uniform governance protocols across operators will streamline approval processes, making it easier to manage applications and handle exceptions.
- Enhanced resiliency and state management. The evolution of FDP will incorporate mechanisms to maintain system stability even under complex operational conditions, ensuring continuous service and data consistency.
Join the Federated NaaS Movement
The FDP is more than just a tool; it’s the backbone for the future of network-driven innovation. With a unified platform, secure data exchanges and a distributed model, the FDP is here to empower developers, simplify operations and strengthen the NaaS ecosystem for all.
All this being said, to fully realize the FDP’s potential, we need input and collaboration from network operators, developers and other stakeholders. Your involvement could shape the future of this platform and help drive innovations that will set new standards for network-enabled applications.
If you’re interested in learning more about the FDP or want to see a live demonstration, don’t hesitate to contact our team! Together, we can build a resilient, innovative foundation that will support the next generation of network-based services.
To learn more about NaaS, register for the next CableLabs Live Webinar, “Taking NaaS APIs to Production: Best Practices and Operational Readiness,” exclusively for employees of CableLabs member companies and our NDA vendor community. The webinar on Dec. 11 will include experts from Charter and Vodafone, who will share insights on how they have been able to expose their APIs to offer differentiated services and take those services into production.