SLICENET

Plug & Play represents a key innovation within the whole of the SliceNet platform, being the main enabler for end-to-end slice customization. SliceNet aims at providing truly customized runtime control, management and operation of end-to-end slice instances while offering vertical-tailored services. The SliceNet Plug & Play control framework is one of the key enablers of slice customization, as it offers a novel combination of tailored control functions, APIs and tools. These are offered to verticals to let them plug their own control logics and customise their slice instances according to their specific needs.

The SliceNet Plug & Play provides an innovative control environment, dedicated per slice. For vertical consumers, and in general, for slice consumers, this means a significantly enhanced degree of flexibility for deploying services to the end users. It exposes a direct control of slice instances and provides a new flavour of customization, at two main levels:

1. it enables slice providers to activate all those specific per-slice SDN and NFV control functions needed to accommodate vertical requirements, in terms of network function composition, as well as performance and QoE; and
2. it allows verticals to further control their slices and services by plugging their own customized functions, enabling the deployment of specific 5G services in a truly customisable, dynamic and scalable way.

Nextworks is leading the SliceNet efforts towards the design and software development of the Plug & Play framework, which is planned to be delivered in Q4 2018.

Senior Cork IT researcher, Mark Roddy, is guest speaker at the inaugural Smart Health conference being held at the W5 Arena in Belfast this coming Thursday the 17th.Mark will present his current research, looking at next generation tele-medicine for emergency ambulance services over 5G cellular networks. This research is part of an EU funded H2020 project, that is developing a number of network slicing prototypes for three vertical sectors – Smart City, eHealth and Smart Grid. 

Mark heads up the eHealth vertical use case and he will talk about “How next generation 5G cellular networks are likely to impact the delivery of pre-hospital Emergency Services.” The fifteen partner SliceNet project started in June 2017 and has an EU contribution budget of €8 million over three years.

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The deployment of the Smart Grid self-healing scenario in the Altice/Efacec testbed has already started, which will allow us to exercise the main concepts of SliceNet. Primarily, SliceNet wants to address the creation of an End-to-End network slice for the energy vertical in a multi domain network architecture.

In this scenario the Digital Service Provider (DSP) will provide the vertical with an End-to-End slice with specific vertical requirements (e.g. URLLC). This End-to-End slice is composed of 2 network slices given by Network Service Provider A (NSaaS A) and Network Service Provider B (NSaaS B), enabling the exploration of a multi-domain slicing scenario.

The energy power grid Intelligent Electronic Devices (IEDs) will connect to the RANs provided by the Network Service Providers. The implementation of these network slices will be driven by new network technologies such as NFV and SDN, especially in the Edge PoP DC and Core DC. Thus will SliceNet deploy the Smart Grid Self-Healing Use Case in an End-to-End slice.

The Workshop will bring together various contributing projects within the Software Network Working Group and as well as other interested projects and parties… Read More

SliceNet has recently completed the design and prototyping of a Mobile/Multi-access Edge Computing (MEC) system as part of the SliceNet end-to-end slicing-friendly infrastructure. The design and prototyping ensures that the SliceNet MEC system is aligned with the ETSI MEC architecture and offers enablers for network slicing with Quality of Service (QoS) support. SliceNet MEC system comprises a low-latency MEC platform (see Figure below), and multi-tenanted infrastructure with a programmable Data Plane, together with Management Plane functionality support taken into account. Potential MEC applications such as RAN-aware video optimisation, mobile network slicing, IoT etc. have been explored to highlight the potential of practical use cases of the SliceNet MEC system.

Mr Thomas Tovinger, Chairman of the 3GPP SA5 (Architecture) group, has posted a very interesting  article in the 3GPP pages:  Management, Orchestration and Charging for 5G networks.

SliceNet believes this is a state-of-the art view on 3GPP standardization efforts on Slice Management.

 MWC 2018 saw the 5G Infrastructure Association (5G-IA) and 5G PPP under the spotlight, with important announcements from the telco industry and policy makers.

5G was the headlining topic at the MWC 2018, shining the spotlight on smart cities, IoT, AR, VR, connected cars and more. Operators, vendors, manufacturers and networks from all over the globe showcased and presented field trials, demonstrated technologies and applications, and gave visitors a taste of the future!

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5GPPP Architecture Working Group released in Dec 2017 the 2nd version of the whitepaper View on 5G Architecture

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3GPP first 5G release: System architecture milestone of 5G is achieved on time
In March 2017, the industry agreed to a plan to accelerate up the 5G standardisation schedule and it was agreed to split up the specification of Release 15 (i.e. 5G) into two phases, Release 15 NSA (Non-standalone) as a priority and Release 15 Full (with standalone) scheduled for later in 2018.

On December 21st, 2017, the 3GPP TSG RAN announced it successfully completed the first implementable 5G NR specification at its Plenary Meeting in Lisbon. AT&T, BT, China Mobile, China Telecom, China Unicom, Deutsche Telekom, Ericsson, Fujitsu, Huawei, Intel, KT Corporation, LG Electronics, LG Uplus, MediaTek Inc., NEC Corporation, Nokia, NTT DOCOMO, Orange, Qualcomm Technologies, Inc., Samsung Electronics, SK Telecom, Sony Mobile Communications Inc., Sprint, TIM, Telefonica, Telia Company, T-Mobile USA, Verizon, Vodafone, and ZTE have made a statement that the completion of the first 5G NR standard has set the stage for the global mobile industry to start full-scale development of 5G NR for large-scale trials and commercial deployments as early as in 2019.

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