Design and analysis of fully virtualized cellular networks based on open-source frameworks

Objectius de Desenvolupament Sostenible::9 - Indústria, Innovació i InfraestructuraObjectius de Desenvolupament Sostenible::17 - Aliança per a Aconseguir els Objetiu

5G-PPP Software Network Working Group:Network Applications: Opening up 5G and beyond networks 5G-PPP projects analysis, Version 2

It is expected that the communication fabric and the way network services are consumed will evolve towards 6G, building on and extending capabilities of 5G and Beyond networks. Service APIs, Operation APIs, Network APIs are different aspects of the network exposure, which provides the communication service providers a way to monetize the network capabilities. Allowing the developer community to use network capabilities via APIs is an emerging area for network monetization. Thus, it is important that network exposure caters for the needs of developers serving different markets, e.g., different vertical industry segments. The concept of “Network Applications” is introduced following this idea. It is defined as a set of services that provides certain functionalities to verticals and their associated use cases. The Network Applications is more than the introduction of new vertical applications that have interaction capabilities. It refers to the need for a separate middleware layer to simplify the implementation and deployment of vertical systems on a large scale. Specifically, third parties or network operators can contribute to Network Applications, depending on the level of interaction and trust. In practice, a Network Application uses the exposed APIs from the network and can either be integrated with (part of) a vertical application or expose its APIs (e.g., service APIs) for further consumption by vertical applications. This paper builds on the findings of the white paper released in 2022. It targets to go into details about the implementations of the two major Network Applications class: “aaS” and hybrid models. It introduces the Network Applications marketplace and put the light on technological solution like CAMARA project, as part of the standard landscape. <br/

CN2F: A Cloud-Native Cellular Network Framework

Upcoming 5G and Beyond 5G (B5G) cellular networks aim to improve the efficiency and flexibility of mobile networks by incorporating various technologies, such as Software Defined Networking (SDN), Network Function Virtualization (NFV), and Network Slicing (NS). In this paper, we share our findings, accompanied by a comprehensive online codebase, about the best practice of using different open-source projects in order to realize a flexible testbed for academia and industrial Research and Development (R&D) activities on the future generation of cellular networks. In particular, a Cloud-Native Cellular Network Framework (CN2F) is presented which uses OpenAirInterface's codebase to generate cellular Virtual Network Functions (VNFs) and deploys Kubernetes to disperse and manage them among some worker nodes. Moreover, CN2F leverages ONOS and Mininet to emulate the effect of the IP transport networks in the fronthaul and backhaul of real cellular networks. In this paper, we also showcase two use cases of CN2F to demonstrate the importance of Edge Computing (EC) and the capability of Radio Access Network (RAN) slicing

5G-MEC Testbeds for V2X Applications

Fifth-generation (5G) mobile networks fulfill the demands of critical applications, such as Ultra-Reliable Low-Latency Communication (URLLC), particularly in the automotive industry. Vehicular communication requires low latency and high computational capabilities at the network’s edge. To meet these requirements, ETSI standardized Multi-access Edge Computing (MEC), which provides cloud computing capabilities and addresses the need for low latency. This paper presents a generalized overview for implementing a 5G-MEC testbed for Vehicle-to-Everything (V2X) applications, as well as the analysis of some important testbeds and state-of-the-art implementations based on their deployment scenario, 5G use cases, and open source accessibility. The complexity of using the testbeds is also discussed, and the challenges researchers may face while replicating and deploying them are highlighted. Finally, the paper summarizes the tools used to build the testbeds and addresses open issues related to implementing the testbeds.publishedVersio

Orchestration in the Cloud-to-Things Compute Continuum: Taxonomy, Survey and Future Directions

IoT systems are becoming an essential part of our environment. Smart cities, smart manufacturing, augmented reality, and self-driving cars are just some examples of the wide range of domains, where the applicability of such systems has been increasing rapidly. These IoT use cases often require simultaneous access to geographically distributed arrays of sensors, and heterogeneous remote, local as well as multi-cloud computational resources. This gives birth to the extended Cloud-to-Things computing paradigm. The emergence of this new paradigm raised the quintessential need to extend the orchestration requirements i.e., the automated deployment and run-time management) of applications from the centralised cloud-only environment to the entire spectrum of resources in the Cloud-to-Things continuum. In order to cope with this requirement, in the last few years, there has been a lot of attention to the development of orchestration systems in both industry and academic environments. This paper is an attempt to gather the research conducted in the orchestration for the Cloud-to-Things continuum landscape and to propose a detailed taxonomy, which is then used to critically review the landscape of existing research work. We finally discuss the key challenges that require further attention and also present a conceptual framework based on the conducted analysis.Comment: Journal of Cloud Computing Pages: 2

5G-PPP Software Network Working Group:Network Applications: Opening up 5G and beyond networks 5G-PPP projects analysis

As part of the 5G-PPP Initiative, the Software Network Working Group prepared this white paper to demystify the concept of the Network Applications. In fact, the Network Application ecosystem is more than the introduction of new vertical applications that have interaction capabilities. It refers to the need for a separate middleware layer to simplify the implementation and deployment of vertical systems on a large scale. Specifically, third parties or network operators can contribute to Network Applications, depending on the level of interaction and trust. Different implementations have been conducted by the different projects considering different API types and different level of trust between the verticals and the owner of 5G platforms. In this paper, the different approaches considered by the projects are summarized. By analysing them, it appears three options of interaction between the verticals and the 5G platform owner: - aaS Model: it is the model where the vertical application consumes the Network Applications as a service. The vertical application deployed in the vertical service provider domain. It connects with the 3GPP network systems (EPS, 5GS) in one or more PLMN operator domain. - Hybrid: it is the model where the vertical instantiates a part of its Vertical App in the operator domain like the EDGE. The other part remains in the vertical domain. A similar approach has been followed in TS 23.286 related to the deployment of V2X server. - Coupled/Delegated: it is the model where the vertical delegates its app to the operator. The Network Applications will be composed and managed by the operator. This approach is the one followed in the platforms like 5G-EVE. In addition, the paper brings an analysis of the different API type deployed. It appears that the abstraction from network APIs to service APIs is necessary to hide the telco complexity making APIs easy to consume for verticals with no telco expertise and to adress data privacy requirements

A First Look at 5G Core Deployments on Public Cloud: Performance Evaluation of Control and User Planes

The Fifth Generation (5G) mobile core network is designed as a set of Virtual Network Functions (VNFs) hosted on Commercial-Off-the-Shelf (COTS) hardware. This creates a growing demand for general-purpose compute resources as 5G deployments continue to expand. Given their elastic infrastructure, cloud services such as Amazon Web Services (AWS) are attractive platforms to address this need. Therefore, it is crucial to understand the control and user plane Quality of Service (QoS) performance associated with deploying the 5G core on top of a public cloud. To account for both software and communication costs, we build a 5G testbed using open-source components spanning multiple locations within AWS. We present an operational breakdown of the performance overhead for various 5G use cases using different core deployment strategies. Our results indicate that moving specific VNFs into edge regions reduces the latency overhead for key 5G operations. Furthermore, we instantiated multiple user plane connections between availability zones and edge regions with different traffic loads. We observed that the deterioration of connection quality varies depending on traffic loads and is use case specific. Ultimately, our findings provide new insights for Mobile Virtual Network Operators (MVNOs) for optimal placements of their 5G core functions

A software-defined networking solution for interconnecting network functions in service-based architectures

Mobile core networks handle critical control functions for delivering services in modern cellular networks. Traditional point-to-point architectures, where network functions are directly connected through standardized interfaces, are being substituted by service-based architectures (SBAs), where core functionalities are finer-grained microservices decoupled from the underlying infrastructure. In this way, network functions and services can be distributed, with scaling and fail-over mechanisms, and can be dynamically deployed, updated, or removed to support slicing. A myriad of network functions can be deployed or removed according to traffic flows, thereby increasing the complexity of connection management. In this context, 3GPP Release 16 defines the service communication proxy (SCP) as a unified communication interface for a set of network functions. In this paper, we propose a novel software-defined networking (SDN)-based solution with the same role for a service mesh architecture where network functions can be deployed anywhere in the infrastructure. We demonstrated its efficiency in comparison with alternative architectures.La Caixa Foundation | Ref. LCF/BQ/ES18/11670020Agencia Estatal de Investigación | Ref. PID2020-116329GB-C21Agencia Estatal de Investigación | Ref. PDC2021-121335-C2

Implementation of a virtualized 5G network

Dissertação de mestrado integrado em Informatics EngineeringMany organizations have developed open software components for 5G (Fifth Generation) networks and recognize the importance of new technologies based on virtualization and softwarization. With these solutions, it is possible to implement a 5G virtualized network without having access to a mobile network, which has many restrictions. Implementing a 5G testbed is essential because it allows the creation of a framework that can enable the development and research of new solutions related to 5G. This dissertation proposes a solution that uses open-source software to emulate the access network and deploys software modules that implement core network functionalities. Moreover, network capabilities, as well as interoperability, are described.Muitas organizações têm desenvolvido soluções de software aberto para componentes da rede 5G (Fifth Generation) e reconhecido a importância de novas tecnologias baseadas em virtualização e em princípios de software. É possível implementar uma rede virtualizada 5G com base nestas soluções, sem necessidade de ter acesso a uma rede móvel, o que possui muitas restrições. A criação de um ambiente de testes 5G é importante, uma vez que permite criar uma estrutura que pode possibilitar o desenvolvimento e o estudo de novas soluções relacionadas com o 5G. Nesta dissertação, é proposta uma solução emulando a rede de acesso e implementando um core recorrendo a software de código aberto. As capacidades da rede são descritas, bem como a interoperabilidade entre as diferentes soluções