Report

Teaser, summary, work performed and final results

Periodic Reporting for period 2 - 5G NORMA (5G NOvel Radio Multiservice adaptive network Architecture)

Teaser

There is a wide consensus in that the requirements for 5G technology cannot be satisfied by simply introducing a new 5G radio interface. Instead, a re-design of the architecture is needed. To this end, 5G NORMA has developed an end-to-end multi-service multi-tenancy...

Summary

There is a wide consensus in that the requirements for 5G technology cannot be satisfied by simply introducing a new 5G radio interface. Instead, a re-design of the architecture is needed. To this end, 5G NORMA has developed an end-to-end multi-service multi-tenancy architecture, which allows for instantiating multiple network slices on a single common infrastructure, each of which can be tailored to specific requirements. Within this architecture, 5G NORMA defined and analysed technologies enabling multi-service and context-aware adaptation of network functions, which leverages the adaptability and efficiency of network functions, and facilitate multi-tenancy in mobile networks, promoting an inherent and dynamic sharing and distribution of network resources between operators and tenants.

In general, the derived technologies serve the purpose of enabling the three novel functionalities which were exemplified and analysed by the 5G NORMA project, namely:
1. Flexible composition and allocation of network functions;
2. Software-defined control of mobile network functions;
3. Joint optimization of network functions,

Finally, the project performed a detailed socio-economic analysis of the benefits of the project innovations to determine their value to both the telecommunication industry and the society.

Work performed

The 5G NORMA project was structured in seven work packages. WP2 established the principal use cases and requirements during the first part of the project, and analysed the socio-economic aspects during the second part of the project. WP3 addressed the design of a multi-service multi-tenancy architecture and derived a top-down system architecture. This work package further performed a detailed verification and evaluation of the final architecture. WP4 and WP5 focused on the development of the novel functions and components integrated with-in the 5G NORMA architecture. WP6 implemented three demonstrators and one online tool for the analysis of techno-economic aspects (http://www.realwireless.eu/main.html). The project’s dissemination and standardisation activities were monitored and coordinated through WP7. The project and innovation management was organised in WP1.

The first major milestone achieved by the project was the 5G NORMA architecture. The functional view of the overall 5G NORMA system architecture is depicted in the figure below. It shows the separation of network functions into four layers as well as the differ-entiation between intra-slice and inter-slice functions.

The second major milestone achieved was the verification and evaluation of the 5G NORMA architecture. A techno-economic analysis of the 5G NORMA architecture was performed with the purpose of evaluating the economic and social benefits of the service-specific architectural solutions, the flexible functional allocation, multi-tenancy support, and the joint optimization of access and core functionalities, taking specific account of the EU policy priorities. For the verification of the 5G NORMA architecture design, the abovementioned network roll-out in a central London study area has been emulated. The 5G NORMA evaluation framework has constantly been under review due to interactions with the 5G-PPP working groups regarding architecture design, KPIs, and spectrum topics.

The third major milestone achieved comprised the implemented demonstrators. 5G NORMA developed four demonstrators showing the following functionality:
- Network Slicing (covering both: Network Control and NFV Management and Orchestration),
- Security, and
- The 5G NORMA Business Cases.

To implement these demonstrators, the following technologies developed by the other WPs were brought to practice: SDM-C, SDM-O, NFV Management and Orchestration, security concepts and several wireless functions. Specifically, the developed demonstrators and online tool are:
- Demo 1: Native Multi-Service Architecture.
- Demo 2: Multi-slice Service-Aware Orchestration.
- Demo 3: Secured Multi-Tenant Virtual Network Resources Provisioning via V-AAA.
- Demo 4: Online Interactive 5G NORMA Business Case Evaluation Tool.
Furthermore, 5G NORMA has been very active to publicly show its results in various venues, such as at major journals, workshops, panels, as well as a three-day summer school organized in London with almost 130 attendees.

Final results

The technical innovations developed by 5G NORMA have had a profound impact at many different fronts.

Societal Impact: 5G NORMA has a strong societal impact: (i) it benefits the end-users, as the architecture developed by 5G NORMA ultimately enables a wider variety of services delivered to mobile devices at a competitive cost to service providers; (ii) it benefits society as a whole as it promotes a smart and sustainable growth of the economy and in particular the telecommunications sector by changing the mobile network ecosystem and opening it to new players; and (iii) it also benefits the European economy and industry by putting Europe ahead in the development of a very innovative technology in a sector of very high potential.

Economic and commercial impact: 5G NORMA defines a novel paradigm which changes the way in which operators manage their mobile networks. The network slicing technology has profound implications on the business model of mobile networks, because of the savings resulting from sharing the wireless infrastructure among multiple tenants, as well as the revenues generated from new services enabled by the instantiation of customized slices:
• Instantiation of service-specific slices for multiple services: The economic analysis conducted by the project has quantified the gains achieved, showing that ROI improvements of 3%, 6%, 7%, and 10% can be achieved.
• Savings from sharing the wireless infrastructure among multiple tenants: Economic savings resulting from sharing a common wireless infrastructure among multiple tenants, providing savings of up to 14% in TCO.

Impact on 5G PPP: 5G NORMA has been strongly engaged in 5G PPP concertation activities such as the working group (WG) on Architecture, the Vision and Societal Challenges working group, the Security working group, and the working group on Standards. As the key architectural 5G PPP project, 5G NORMA has played a leading role in the 5G PPP Architecture WG. This WG has published a white paper that provides the European vision on the fundamental architectural elements of future 5G networks.

Industrial impact: The project has put particular emphasis on standardisation of the interfaces of the architecture involving different components, and the protection of the internal design of the modules and systems. Specifically, 5G NORMA produced 63 standard proposals, contributed to SDOs such as 3GPP, IETF, IEEE, NGMN, and BBF, as well as a total of 22 patent applications.

Scientific impact: The project results were published in 4 book chapters, 22 journal articles, 48 conference papers, as well as the organization of 15 workshops and 8 tutorials. 5G NORMA is the organizer of the 5GArchitecture (5GArch) workshop series, which has become a premier event on the topic of 5G architecture. 5G NORMA further organized multiple events.

Impact on the general audience: In order to show the benefits of European research to a broader audience, 5G NORMA actively used social media and press releases to disseminate the project results to a non-technical audience.

Website & more info

More info: https://5gnorma.5g-ppp.eu/.