US Patent 11895020 Virtualized cell site routers with layer 2 forwarding

In general, techniques are described for deploying virtualized cell site routers (vCSRs) capable of layer 2 (L2) forwarding to cell site servers to support management and orchestration of functional units for mobile networks executing on the cell site servers. In an example, a method comprises receiving, at a forwarding plane of a virtualized cell site router (vCSR) of a first Distributed Unit (DU) of a plurality of DU servers of a cell site for a 5G radio access network, the vCSR having a containerized routing protocol process and a forwarding plane configured to perform Layer 2 (L2) switching, L2 packets on a second interface for a second physical link connecting the first DU server to an L2 switch; and switching, by the forwarding plane of the vCSR of the first DU, the L2 packets on a first interface for a first physical link connecting the first DU server to a second DU server of the plurality of DU servers.