5G/NR Architecture Is it revolutionary or...

5G/NR Architecture – Is it

revolutionary or evolutionary?

The 5G-MoNArch view

David M. Gutierrez Estevez

Senior 5G Researcher

Samsung Electronics R&D Institute UK

IEEE CSCN, September 2017

ⓒ 2017. Digital Media & Communications R&D Center. All rights reserved.

Initial Thoughts

2/14

Evolution or revolution? It depends how “revolutionary” these key concepts sound:

Network function (NF)-centric view of architecture

Cloudification of networks

However, cloud computing has extensively occupied itself with virtualization

Solutions from cloud frameworks will need to be enhanced considering central/edge cloud

trade-offs:

Centralising RAN provides mux gains, but timescales involved in RAN functions are

much smaller than those considered in cloud solutions.

Cloud resources are typically limited at the edge but centralisation consumes substantial

resources in the x-haul and poses strict requirements on the network


Initial Thoughts: ETSI NFV

3/14

How “revolutionary” is ETSI NFV architecture?

Many of its concepts are key to 5G architecture

ETSI NFV’s main focus is on management and orchestration aspects that are purely

related to virtualized deployments of network functions defined in other forums (e.g.

3GPP)


Initial Thoughts: 3GPP SA2

4/14

How “revolutionary is 3GPP’s SA2 architecture?”

Protocol and reference points are defined for each NF

Have both functional behaviour and interfaces.

Can be implemented either as a network element on a dedicated hardware, as a software instance

running on a dedicated hardware, or as a virtualized function instantiated on generic hardware

Separation of control and user planes

Guarantees each plane resources to be scaled independently.

Allows UPFs to be deployed separately from control plane functions in a distributed fashion

AMF PCF

UE (R)AN UPF DN

NG13

NG7

NG3 NG6

NG2 NG4NG1

AFNG5SMFNG11

NG9

AUSF

NG8NG12

UDM

NG10

NG14 NG15

NW Arch w/ Point-to-Point Interface Network Functions

AMF Access & Mobility Management Function

SMF Session Management Function

PCF Policy Control Function

UPF User Plane Function

AUSF Authentication Server Function

UDM User Data Management

AF Application Function

New Interfaces

NG10 SMF – UDM

NG11 AMF – SMF

NG12 AMF – AUSF

NG15 AMF – PCF


The 5G-MoNArch View

5/14

EU’s 5G-PPP phase 2 project

5G-MoNArch: 5G Mobile Network Architecture for diverse services, use cases,

and applications in 5G and beyond

Project builds upon key end-to-end architectural concepts of ETSI NFV and 3GPP

SA2 using as basis an end-to-end multi-slice system

Flexible function decomposition to tackle challenges associated to allocation of

NFs to central/edge clouds


Project Key Facts

6/14

Project runtime: July 2017 –

June 2019 (24 Months)

Leadership team:

Coordinator: Nokia Munich

(Germany)

Technical Management:

Universidad Carlos III de

Madrid UC3M (Spain)

Innovation Management:

Deutsche Telekom,

Darmstadt / Bonn

(Germany)

Effort: 7.7M EUR / ca. 750 PM


Project Overview

7/14

Approach:

3 enabling innovations,

which fill gaps not addres

sed in 5GPPP Phase1

2 functional innovation

s (one per testbed), com

plementing architecture

with specific functionality

Testbeds:

Vertical industry use case (smart sea port)

Mobile operator deployment (touristic city)

Motivation:

5G architecture: Flexible,

adaptable, programmabl

e

Proof-of-Concept through

real-world testbed imple

mentations

Impact:

Commercial potential for enhanced products and novel services

Paving the way for new market players


Enabling Innovations

8/14


Functional Innovation I: Resilience & Security

9/14

Innovations underway:

Multi-connectivity in virtualised architecture setups with limited computation capabilities,

focusing on reliability rather than throughput

Network coding techniques tailored for reliability in virtualised network architectures

Mechanisms to properly isolate segments of a virtualised environment from network

faults and security threats

Correlation of network function faults in virtualized environments, identifying root

cause

Failsafe operation – 5G islands: Semi-autonomous operation

Efficiency of specialised lightweight cryptographic algorithms when deployed in

virtualised network environments


Functional Innovation II: Resource Elasticity

10/14

Elasticity: ability to gracefully adapt to load changes in an automatic manner such that at

each point in time the available resources match the demand as closely and efficiently as

possible.

Dimensions of elasticity: VNFs, infrastructure, slices, services.

Three key contributions of resource elasticity functional innovation:

Introduce elasticity at both edge and central cloud taking into account the associated

constraints of the cloud infrastructure and the mobile network

Consider that in 5G cloud resources are shared by different slices and their availability

may change according to the dynamic request of tenants

Provide an edge cloud architecture where computational and storage resources can

be federated, assigned, and scaled where needed according to the load


Testbeds

11/14

Traffic control/Surveillance

Barges measurements Smart Sea Port

(Hamburg)

Touristic City

Applications

Traffic light control (cMTC): Traffic lights which are connected through wireless connection; reliable and resilient; data integrity

Video surveillance (MBB): Video surveillance required to control entrance to areas, current status of areas, etc

Sensor measurements (mMTC); Sensor measurements on barges which must be connect through wireless terminals

Focus areas:

On-site Live Event Experience by means

of VR

Immersive and Integrated Media: People

will see a part of a touristic city full of real

and imaginary people

Cooperative Media Production: People will

cooperate in real time with imaginary and

real people who are feeling the same VR

experience.


Additional 5G Architecture Topics

12/14

Artificial Intelligence (AI) for management and orchestration:

Extension of NFV/SDN orchestration principles towards automated network provision

and dynamic resource allocation through application of AI-based autonomics

Optimisation of network performance for multi-network connectivity, network efficiency,

cost per bit, energy consumption, …

Consolidation of service deployment, policy control, resource management, network

monitoring and analysis and prediction under single AI-driven control.

Novel UE-centric roles

Conventional role constrained to supporting eNB/RAN operation without decision power

New 5G architecture and AI may enable new roles:

Slice selection and control

UE as part of the mobility management orchestrator

UE-centric cells: further enhanced D2D, virtual cells


Conclusions

13/14

5G architecture will be the result of the complete merging of the

cloud computing and networking worlds Result is a telco cloud that brings together nodes of different nature

(edge and core) and enables flexible allocation of NFs to any of the

nodes within this cloud.

Network slicing paradigm will provide the “logical architectural

units”

Whether that is evolutionary or revolutionary is probably just a

matter or perspective, but cellular architecture is definitely

experiencing quite a few changes

5G/NR Architecture Is it revolutionary or...

Documents

Transcript of 5G/NR Architecture Is it revolutionary or...