Initial Steps

5G Edge computing is a collaboration between cloud service providers (CSP) and Verizon. Preparing to use the Edge Discovery Service requires actions initiated on the CSP and Verizon platforms:

1. Find regions defined on the Verizon 5G edge network, and then identify the regions to deploy the application.
2. Create one or more service profiles that describe the resource requirements of the application services being deployed at the edge.
3. Use region names and service profiles to find optimal 5G Edge platforms for deployment in each region. (A user equipment identifier (UE-ID) can also be used to find optimal 5G Edge platforms based on equipment IP addresses).
4. On the CSP site, deploy the application's edge services to each of the 5G Edge platforms identified in step 3.
5. Note the endpoint information for each deployed service; such as the FQDN, IPv4 address, IPv6 address, port, and URI.
6. Register the endpoints with the Edge Discovery Service. In essence, this tells the Edge Discovery Service, "Service XYZ is deployed to platform A at endpoint 123.23.345.111, and to platform B and endpoint 345.56.567.123."

Once completed, API requests seeking optimal service endpoints for client device connection can be sent. Developers can also include these steps in their device deployment processes or build them into a cloud-based client routing service that is called at the start of each session.

Tutorial

For guidance and insights on EDS see Verizon's 5G MEC blog and a tutorial to get up and running with public MEC. You can enable Mobile Client Edge Discovery with your Limited Access Tokens here.

Obtaining an API Token

Verizon uses the OAuth2 “client credentials” grant type to authenticate an API caller before providing an access token. It is required that the Application Key and Secret are Base64 encoded. To obtain an access token:

1. Sign in or Sign up at the 5G Edge Portal.
2. Click "API Keys" from the menu selections at the top of the page. You can also click on your login icon (in the upper right corner) and from the drop-down select API Keys .
3. Copy the key and the secret and store them in a secure place for application use.
4. Concatenate the key and the secret, with a colon between them. (See example: my_key_value:my_secret_value)
5. Encode the entire string in Base64 format. (To learn more about encoding in the Base64 format, visit www.base64encode.org).
6. Acquire a token by sending a POST (Power on Self Test) request to 5gedge.verizon.com/api/ts/v1/oauth2/token; with the encoded string in the header.

cURL Example:

curl -X POST -d "grant_type=client_credentials" -H "Authorization: Basic BASE64_ENCODED_APP_KEY_AND_SECRET" -H "Content-Type: application/x-www-form-urlencoded" "https://5gedge.verizon.com/api/ts/v1/oauth2/token"

The response will contain an access_token property that must be included as the authorization bearer token in the header for API requests. This token is valid for one hour from the time it is issued. Token requests made during that hour will return the same token.