Experimentation and Validation Openness for Long-term evolution of VErtical inDustries in 5G era and beyond

Project Information

EVOLVED-5G

Grant agreement ID: 101016608

DOI

10.3030/101016608

Project closed

EC signature date 8 December 2020

Start date 1 January 2021

End date 31 December 2023

Funded under

• INDUSTRIAL LEADERSHIP - Leadership in enabling and industrial technologies - Information and Communication Technologies (ICT)

Total cost

€ 7 988 187,50

EU contribution

€ 5 999 993,75

Coordinated by

TELEFONICA INNOVACION DIGITAL SL
Spain

Periodic Reporting for period 2 - EVOLVED-5G (Experimentation and Validation Openness for Long-term evolution of VErtical inDustries in 5G era and beyond)

Reporting period: 2022-05-01 to 2023-12-31

Summary of the context and overall objectives of the project

The intense research work on 5G experimentation in Europe has reached the point where evolved 5G capabilities, such as the Service-Based Architecture (SBA), are to be exploited by third party innovators. Key enabler for this openness to third parties is the exploitation of standard APIs. An endeavor that is expected to shape a new and dynamic ecosystem in mobile networks from both the technology and marketing perspectives. Indeed, SBA allows the exposure of network services and capabilities through a set of northbound service APIs from the Network Exposure Function (NEF), a border function of the 5G network core. In addition, 3GPP has specified the procedures and the information flows for a common API framework (CAPIF) to address applicability, duplication, and inconsistency aspects when northbound service APIs are used. The requirements for the related API calls are listed in 3GPP TS 29.522 and TS 23.222. In this context, vertical industries will be able to develop Network Apps, i.e. to compose services by consuming 3GPP APIs, such as the northbound APIs of the network core, as well as other telco APIs, (e.g. service orchestration APIs exposed from the business support system – BSS).

EVOLVED-5G during the reporting period, but also across its lifetime, committed to embrace the potential of the emerging Network App ecosystem under the following objectives, which were fulfilled by its completion:

i) To design and develop an SDK and tools that will facilitate the development and verification of a Network App
ii) To build an open experimentation 5G facility for Network App creation, validation, and certification,
iii) To expose the 5G core network capabilities through standardized APIs (i.e. CAPIF)
iv) To provide an automated pipeline for the validation and certification of Network Apps.
v) To create a marketplace for the publication and the trading of the Network Apps
vi) To create an accelerator program for the 5G/Network App innovation across Europe
vii) To create a community around 5G programmability and Network App innovation

Work performed from the beginning of the project to the end of the period covered by the report and main results achieved so far

Work carried out during the reporting period, which also concludes the project activities, is summarized below, in the form of achievements and results:
- Acceptance and adoption of the EVOLVED-5G definition and approach for the “Network App” by sibling projects and 5GPPP (e.g. SoftNet WG).
- Provision of the final and detailed architectural representation of the “Network app ecosystem” with all the functional entities and interfaces needed for Network App lifecycle.
- Successful instantiation of the Network App ecosystem including the final open-source release of software components, such as a) the EVOLVED-5G workspace and SDK, b) the 3GPP NEF emulator (Location and QoSMon APIs are supported), c) the implementation of 3GPP CAPIF specifications Rel.17 and d) the EVOLVED-5G marketplace dedicated to Network Apps.
Tangible technological upgrades in the EVOLVED-5G experimentation platforms (Athens and Malaga testbeds) with new features at their compute, network, and telco infrastructure.
Adoption of a CI/CD experimentation methodology and fully automation of the related Network App toolchain.
Development of the final version of 12 Network Apps that cover various service needs of the manufacturing domain.
All the project Netwok Apps completed successfully the last two assessment stages of the three-stage assessment process defined in the project; i.e. there was successful completion of validation and certification processes (verification covered mainly during period 1), as well as publication of the at the EVOLVED-5G marketplace.
Successful execution of the EVOLVED-5G acceleration program (for SMEs and startups) covering technology and business aspects around the Network App ecosystem, together with community building activities around 5G innovation.
Completion of the ambitious communication and dissemination plan set in the beginning of the project by achieving all the related KPIs.
Multiple and tangible contributions to standards, and a distinguishing achievement regarding the implementation of the 3GPP CAPIF specifications, which was accepted by ETSI in order to set a new Software Development Group; the ETSI SDG OpenCAPIF.

Progress beyond the state of the art and expected potential impact (including the socio-economic impact and the wider societal implications of the project so far)

During period 2 of the project, partners created tangible results on 5G programmability and openness concept with long term impact and potential for wider acceptance and evolution after the project lifetime.
High-impact results occurred, including a) creation of open-source software for boosting the creativity around 5G Network Apps and specifically the release of EVOLVED-5G service package that allows the replicability of the EVOLVED-5G ecosystem to any 5G platform, b) input to standards, and c) a) a set of scientific and white paper publications. All these results have a long-term impact on the research and SDO community since after the end of the project they are accessible and can be adopted, reused, and enhanced.
The SMEs of the consortium as well as the SMEs form the accelerator program raised awareness on the 5G openness and programmability business opportunity, resulting to a business transformation of their product line, which led to improved products and services, such as ANITA 4 by GMI, etc.
A public forum as well as a content library on the 5G network openness and programmability has been created by EVOLVED-5G in order to offer to any interested third party to be engaged and receive support on 5G programmability.
Knowledge and lessons learned during the project are already a legacy for follow up projects in the SNS framework, e.g. the 6G-SANDBOX, where the 3GPP API implementations (i.e. NEF/CAPIF) by EVOLVED-5G and CI/CD toolchain have been adopted to support 6G experimentation activities.
A new ETSI SDG was born through the EVOLVED-5G development efforts, i.e. the ETSI SDG OpenCAPIF.
A set of contributions to the 5GPPP WGs and collaborations with other projects, resulted to a convergence around the topics of the 5G network openness and programmability, which were reflected in various 5G-PPP publications and workshops.

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