Technical Charter for O-RAN Software Community

2020 05 13

Agenda

1. Call for Scribe (minutes owner) Farheen Cefalu

2. Roll Call & Quorum Check 

   Company	Contact Name	Attendance	Alternate Contact	Attendance
   AT&T	Jack Murray Co-Chair		Lusheng Ji
   China Mobile	Jinri Huang Co-Chair		Weichen Ni
   Deutsche Telekom	David Streibl		Ondřej Hudousek
   NTT DOCOMO	Masafumi Masuda		Anil Umesh
   Orange	William Diego		Vincent Danno
   Verizon	Viswa Kumar		Kristen Young
   Nokia	Juha Oravainen		Thoralf Czichy
   Radisys	Ganesh Shenbagaraman		Sachin Srivastava
   Ericsson	John-Paul Lane

   *Quorum: 50% or more of total TSC voting members unless excluded due to attendance.  We have a quorum and can vote on activities.

3. Review and Agree to Minutes of Previous Meeting 

4. Review of Today's Agenda

   1. Add O-RAN Distributed Unit Low (ODULOW) May 31st Bronze delivery request to the top of the agenda because we ran out of time last week.

5. Release Votes and Approval

6. Copyright updates

7. Marketing of the current release (WG, LF, PR)

   1. Virtual Exhibition.
   2. OSC Logo status.

8. Status of Open Action Items (Old Business)

   1. Action/ Farheen Cefalu add copyright updates to the agenda. (See item 6 added above)
   2. Action/ Farheen Cefaluadd link to the Virtual Exhibition site.   (Completed on 28 Apr 2020 on Events)
   3. Action/ Farheen add reviewing Bronze release highlights to the agenda (See item 9.ii added below)
   4. Action/ Farheen Add the O-RAN-SC logo request to the marketing agenda. (See 7b above)
   5. Action/ William DIEGO update on the coordination with the O-RAN test group

9. Standing Agenda Items (Brief Status of Ongoing Activities)

   1. Release Manager Trishan de Lanerolle /Release Planning: Weekly TOC Scheduling

      1. Bronze Timeline

      2. Review Bronze Release Highlights

   2. user-59b16 Requirements Software Architecture Committee

   3. user-d3360  Integration and Test

      1. Gerrit review process improvement
      2. Integration and testing status report
         

   4. Report out from PTL: Stand-Up & Report Out on Blockers - next week we will start to cover this list.  Are there any major items that anyone would like to raise to the TOC this week? 

      1. John Keeney Non-RealTime RIC (RAN Intelligent Controller) (NONRTRIC)

      2. Matti Hiltunen RIC Applications (RICAPP) 

      3. Thoralf Czichy RIC Platform (RIC) 

      4. user-a934b O-RAN Centralized Unit (OCU) 

      5. Sachin Srivastava O-RAN Distributed Unit High (ODUHIGH)

      6. Zhimin Yuan O-RAN Distributed Unit Low (ODULOW)

         1. status update

      7. Martin Skorupski Operations and Maintenance (OAM)

      8. Alex Stancu Simulations (SIM)

      9. Xiaohua Zhang Infrastructure (INF)

      10. weichen ni Documentation (DOC)

      11. (TBD) O-RAN Radio Unit (ORU)

10. New Agenda Items (New Business): New Items Submitted (+speaker) & Open Call to TOC For Additional Items. 

    1. OAI purposed Meeting

11. Planning for Next Meeting

12. Any Other Business (AOB) 

13. Meeting Summary (resolutions, new action items, etc.)

2020 05 06

Zoom recording: 2020-05-06_toc.mp4

Agenda

1. Call for Scribe (minutes owner) Farheen Cefalu

2. Roll Call & Quorum Check 

   Company	Contact Name	Attendance	Alternate Contact	Attendance
   AT&T	Jack Murray Co-Chair	x	Lusheng Ji
   China Mobile	Jinri Huang Co-Chair	x	Weichen Ni	x
   Deutsche Telekom	David Streibl	x	Ondřej Hudousek
   NTT DOCOMO	Masafumi Masuda		Anil Umesh
   Orange	William Diego	x	Vincent Danno
   Verizon	Viswa Kumar		Kristen Young
   Nokia	Juha Oravainen	x	Thoralf Czichy
   Radisys	Ganesh Shenbagaraman	x	Sachin Srivastava
   Ericsson	John-Paul Lane	x

   *Quorum: 50% or more of total TSC voting members unless excluded due to attendance.  We have a quorum and can vote on activities.

3. Review and Agree to Minutes of Previous Meeting 

   1. The minutes of the prior meetings were reviewed, and there were no comments, questions or corrections.
      1. Vote to approve minutes for 29 Apr 2020 
      2. On motion made by John-Paul Lane
      3. Seconded by user-2057e
      4. VOTE: Vote taken, item passed

4. Review of Today's Agenda

   1. Add O-RAN Distributed Unit Low (ODULOW) May 31st Bronze delivery request to the top of the agenda because we ran out of time last week.
   2. Jack has copyright updates.  It should be a part of the agenda.  Action/ Farheen Cefalu add copyright updates to the agenda.
   3. Jack as we approach Cherry I would like to ask other team members to bring up changes to the agenda to improve the Cherry release.  I invite your ideas and recommendations of how we should adapt.  For others please work with the RSAC committee to start planning Cherry.  The more pre-work we can do it is better.  It is important that we as a team participate on the planning of Cherry. 

5. Release Votes and Approval

6. Marketing of the current release (WG, LF, PR)

   1. Virtual Exhibition.
   2. Jinri - I was absent last week. 
      1. The virtual exhibition has been opened. Action/ Farheen Cefalu add link to the website. 
      2. The demos once approved will be on the O-RAN website.  
      3. Jack: It is not quite time yet to release information on our Bronze release.  Typically if we ask for companies to add statements it takes a little time.  We want to gather the statements in advance of the press release.  We should add this to the list. Action/ Farheen add reviewing Bronze release highlights
   3. Action/ Farheen Add the O-RAN-SC logo request to the marketing agenda.
   4. Nokia and AT&T will put something together for the plugfest.  During the plugfest which is 9-21-2020 we will put the RIC.
   5. Another idea we have to add here is the OSC logo.   What is a good logo that covers what we want to do.  If someone is interested in taking the lead.  We should add it under the marketing piece.  It is better to have a logo rather than text because other LF projects have logos.  Looking for TOC member who wants to take the lead on the logo.

7. Status of Open Action Items (Old Business)

   1. Action/ William DIEGO update on the coordination with the O-RAN test group
      1. For the moment I just sent you the timeline for the ETE test focus group.  We need to update the Cherry release timeline.  I will continue to follow the test integration focus group.
   2. Action/ user-d3360  add the longer term test strategy to the agenda. 
   3. Action/ Farheen Cefalu add the update on the copyright issue for us.  This has been an ongoing decision for some time.
      1. Jack got confirmation from the legal team on item 1.  Each contributor retains the full copyrights...
      2. O-RAN does not technically doesn't have possession of the copyright material.  There is a gap in time.  See the item 2.
      3. Copyright
      4. The board has to grant permission to make the decisions.  The intent is broad to cover all the items that we have requested in the specifications.
      5. John-Paul: I interpret this to mean is OSC the A1 spec was worked on collaboratively we can go the executive committee to seek permission to use for specifications received by the Alliance.
         Jack: Once a spec is approved they will grant the use.  There is a little gap in once the o-ran alliance approves the spec.
      6. There is a third item that is being worked on for 3GPP.  I will invite someone to talk about that once it is ready to be shared.

8. Standing Agenda Items (Brief Status of Ongoing Activities)

   1. Release Manager Trishan de Lanerolle /Release Planning: Weekly TOC Scheduling

      1. Project Bronze Release

   2. user-59b16 Requirements Software Architecture Committee

      1. Rittwik: We started gathering the Cherry release items.  For O-DU to be functional we need to agree on a specific format or minimal viable configuration (bandwidth, numerology). Implementation depends on our consensus.  All upstream use cases will depend on this MVP.  As a team we need to make progress.  There will be issues if your infrastructure does not match the use case requirements.
      2. Zhimin - We want to know what are our priority contributions.
      3. Rittwik - In general how advanced does O-SC have to be?  We need advice from the TOC of what is the minimal viable feature set the O-DU supports.  OAI will also need this requirement also
      4. Ganesh - I believe we will benefit in another focused meeting. It can be feature rich that can be built out.  We need to have a roadmap done so we will see how it matures over the next three releases.  From Radisys we can support this approach.
      5. Jack - The minimal viable product set that we are coming up from an OSC standpoint is to demonstrate the interfaces of O1, E1, E2 interfaces and show a minimally viable functional stack.  We need to define a scenario of three different radios that walk through a series of scenarios that run as a functioning stack.  How to install, operate, setup, tear down, hand off a session.  You need to demonstrate a working stack.  That is our first vertical attempt.  Then you start working horizontally adding and improving functionality based on features and capabilities.  Without a stack in place with a very advanced CU or DU to talk to makes it a very fractured feature.  This is my thought process.  The integration test team has to demonstrate this minimal stack interfaces working together.

   3. user-d3360  Integration and Test

      1. Gerrit review process improvement
         1. Two TOC meetings ago we continued the improving the test team process.  We recommend starting from Cherry we will be putting out the messaging instead of enforcing during the gerrit review process.  The recommendation was let us first come up with Best Practices then review how it was executed and then enforce the gerrit workflow changes.  
            1. there is no self merging.  You have to get a +2 score from a reviewer who is not yourself.  The other is not allowing a huge single submission.
            2. Under Integration and Test Release Testing Plans we will have 3 use cases.  Healthcheck, O-DU Integration, and the Traffic Steering Use case.
            3. Team members review and make sure the flows are represented correctly Release Testing Plans
            4. Traffic Steering use case layer is planned to be delivered later this week.  I hope Matti's team can update the call flows so we can test.
            5. O-DU integration presented a deck two weeks ago. They will deliver in the Bronze point release.
            6. Jack: I look to the team to figure out a process to create a score card to track the progress of each process relative to the target requirements of each release.  That summary score card is what we will share with others.  No one will have a perfect score but we have to understand how each project will deliver.
      2. Integration and testing status report
         

   4. Report out from PTL: Stand-Up & Report Out on Blockers - next week we will start to cover this list.  Are there any major items that anyone would like to raise to the TOC this week? 

      1. John Keeney Non-RealTime RIC (RAN Intelligent Controller) (NONRTRIC)

      2. Matti Hiltunen RIC Applications (RICAPP) 

      3. Thoralf Czichy RIC Platform (RIC) 

      4. user-a934b O-RAN Centralized Unit (OCU) 

      5. Sachin Srivastava O-RAN Distributed Unit High (ODUHIGH)

      6. Zhimin Yuan O-RAN Distributed Unit Low (ODULOW)

         1. Bronze Release (Jun 2020) 
            1. Fronthaul interface in the source code format.
            2. Layer 1 in binary format.
            3. Testing structure for O-DU low internal testing.
            4. Jack will the O1 spec effect O-DU low or O-DU high?  How the O1 will handle the split?
            5. Zhimin No we are not discussing on O1. 
            6. Jack: Ganesh get to an agreement about the split.
            7. Ganesh: The O-DU plain once it is out it will have a consistent interface.  O-DU is one logical physical entity High and Low.
            8. Fapi Interface development slide 2. 
               1. We have fronthaul interface
               2. test mack stub will be stored in github repo.
               3. Inside is the O-DU low project with the FAPI translator.
            9. Jack Intel has submitted a license that the O-RAN legal team has accepted.  We are working toward tomorrow morning US Eastern time.  We have to get this on the TSC agenda.  We have to get the OSFG vote. The goal is to approve using the Intel binary as a test fixture in this structure.  O-RAN legal team has approved using it as a test fixture.  The software will not appear on the LF repo but be on demand on the test assembly.  We need to get approval from the OFSG members to vote and bring it to the TSC meeting.  Hopefully by tomorrow we will have approval.
            10. Zhimin: O-RAN Community B time line: Our target is May 31.  The code will be available in both the osc repo.  Can we be included in the Bronze release?
            11. Jack: That leaves no time for test.  We can make it available by the July time frame as a part of the Bronze maintenance release.  Generally we don't release code unless we can pass some of the tests and use cases.
            12. Zhimin: The binary license was agreed.  We are now focussed on the process.  We can start testing our software application in the lab.  If we can pull in one week?  Is that possible?
            13. Jack: Lusheng can testing be completed by the end of May?
            14. Lusheng: If everything works well and it's not too complicated.  Another gap we have the integration with O-DU High.  Ganesh? 
            15. Zhimin: For the Bronze release finished with O-DU High is not for Bronze but for Maintenance release.  Can O-DU Low be a part of the Bronze release?
            16. Lusheng: There is no integration test.  We call it unit test.  Jack I think Zhimin is asking for participation in normal release B and not as a part of the flow.  The flow will be delivered by the maintenance release.
            17. Jack the broader TOC needs to understand.  We don't have to make a final decision this week.  Let's take it up next week at the TOC level to see if we are OK with including O-DU Low as a part of the Bronze release with only unit testing.  Let us take a vote on it next week on how we want to proceed.  Is it a part of maintenance or Bronze.  

      7. Martin Skorupski Operations and Maintenance (OAM)

      8. Alex Stancu Simulations (SIM)

      9. Xiaohua Zhang Infrastructure (INF)

      10. weichen ni Documentation (DOC)

      11. (TBD) O-RAN Radio Unit (ORU)

9. New Agenda Items (New Business): New Items Submitted (+speaker) & Open Call to TOC For Additional Items. 

   1. OAI purposed Meeting
   2. OSC Logo

10. Planning for Next Meeting

    1. Next Tuesday there is an OAI meeting.  If you wish to participate please join the zoom meeting for next Tuesday.  We will hear from the OAI group of what they are thinking about activities, coordination, and interest.  

11. Any Other Business (AOB) 

12. Meeting Summary (resolutions, new action items, etc.)

    1. Votes:
       1. he minutes of the prior meetings were reviewed, and there were no comments, questions or corrections.
          1. Vote to approve minutes for 29 Apr 2020 
          2. On motion made by John-Paul Lane
          3. Seconded by user-2057e
          4. VOTE: Vote taken, item passed
    2. Actions:
       1. Action/ Farheen Cefalu add virtual link to the Events page on the wiki.
       2. Action/ William DIEGO update on the coordination with the O-RAN test group
       3. Action/ Farheen Cefalu add the update on the copyright issue to the agenda.
       4. Action/ Farheen Add the O-RAN-SC logo request to the marketing agenda.