Expeto Platform Overview⚓︎
Platform Architecture⚓︎
The Expeto Platform is a software extension to a Mobile Network Operator's (MNO) primary Network Core, deployed alongside it to deliver standard 4G/5G network elements for Private Mobile Networking to Enterprise customers. The platform enables comprehensive management of connected assets, policy enforcement, and mobile network performance monitoring in globally distributed deployments. Its components provide centralized control and management capabilities to both MNOs and Enterprise customers across a single control plane.
The Expeto Platform consists of two main software components:
- Expeto Gateway - Deployed and hosted alongside the MNO Network Core
- Expeto Edge - Deployed and hosted by the Enterprise customer within their networks or hosted by the MNO as part of a managed service offering
Expeto Gateway⚓︎
The Expeto Gateway serves as a multi-tenant service deployed within the MNO infrastructure, providing a centralized management layer across all customers. The Gateway comprises three integrated components:
xControl⚓︎
xControl provides the UI/API interface for subscriber administration and network policy orchestration for MNO's and their enterprise customers. It delivers a self-service, global single pane of glass for management and configuration of Edge sites. Through xControl, users can manage mobile assets/SIMs/eSIMs, apply network policies, and administer network segments for the private network.
xControl is a cloud-native solution that does not require real-time access to the Edge platform. Edge agents collect metrics and "call home" to xControl for updates only. Any interruption in this connection does not cause network issues for devices connected to the private mobile network.
Key capabilities of xControl include:
- Access through web browser UI or standard REST API calls
- Multi-tenant architecture supporting delegated administration
- SIM/eSIM management
- Bulk actions (import, update, delete) for mobile assets
- Profile creation for service level assignment to mobile assets
- Roaming Profile creation for assigning carrier access restrictions
- Account, customer, and site management
- Role-Based Access Control (RBAC)
xRouter⚓︎
xRouter is a software application that redirects data from the public mobile network provider to Edge sites under enterprise control via a secure tunnel. xRouter handles subscriber authentication, policy management, and network routing before connecting to the Edge site.
The MNO providing the public network manages device authentication through the authentication service within the xRouter platform, which provides a proxy service to route traffic to the respective Edge sites on a per subscriber basis. All communication between the public macro network and xRouter utilizes standard 3GPP interfaces, with the xRouter software application fully integrated with the MNO network.
xRouter features include:
- Secure data path control within geographic boundaries
- Secure tunneling to carry user data packets to Edge sites
- Public RAN deployment support
- Traffic routing from MNO public core to specific network segments within customer Edge
- 3GPP standard interface utilization
- Subscriber-based data path selection
- GTP Proxy connectivity between MNO public macro network and Enterprise Edge
xView⚓︎
xView is a monitoring system based on the open source Prometheus platform, providing metrics collection and alert triggering capabilities. Its distributed architecture offers comprehensive network monitoring with a centralized aggregated view of the Expeto Platform operational status.
xView collector agents gather metrics from all platform components, federate these metrics, and forward them to the xView master. The master evaluates the metrics against alert expressions stored in the Expeto alert library, triggering alerts when expressions remain unresolved. xView integrates with third-party tools such as Grafana and Datadog for data visualization and alert management.
Expeto Edge⚓︎
Expeto Edge provides a complete, standards-based, 3GPP-compliant 4G/5G packet core platform to support the necessary functionality for hybrid mobile networks. It is deployed as the xCore component for connection to either a local private RAN or to the public macro RAN of the MNO.
An xCore instance can be installed either physically at a remote Enterprise site or virtually in a private cloud environment. Each site supports multiple network segments ("Systems"), each with a unique CIDR/subnet, as supported by the host network. xCore is typically deployed "behind the Enterprise firewall," offering full control to the Enterprise to support their mobile networks. Alternatively, xCore can be deployed in the MNO environment and hosted for the Enterprise as a fully managed service.
The Expeto Agent is deployed on the platform and provides monitoring, watchdog functionality, and configuration synchronization. The Agent maintains an asynchronous connection to xControl to ensure configuration changes are automatically propagated to different xCore locations. Connection for the Agent requires "outbound only" traffic to the xControl platform.
xCore is installed on an edge server running the Linux operating system with Kubernetes containers. The platform provides scalability through additional compute resources to support the Expeto software.
For private RAN deployments, local authentication of devices operates without requiring continuous backhaul connection to the remote site. The local mobile asset database contains all valid subscriber details and maintains synchronization via the local Expeto Agent connected to xControl. If the Agent is disconnected, new changes are queued on xControl and forwarded when the connection is reestablished.
For public RAN deployment, xCore connects to one or more MNO-hosted xRouter sites to provide secure private networking over the public mobile network with low latency.
Expeto Edge features:
- 3GPP-compliant 4G/5G core network elements
- Deployment flexibility (corporate data center, private cloud, or remote sites with local authentication)
- Local authentication without continuous backhaul connection requirement for private deployments
- Cloud-native architecture utilizing containers and orchestration
- Enterprise deployment options (data center, cloud, or edge)
- Containerized packet core components with dynamic scalability