Periodic Reporting for period 2 - SMART5GRID (Smart5Grid - Demonstration of 5G solutions for SMART energy GRIDs of the future)
Reporting period: 2022-07-01 to 2024-04-30
The main issue addressed by the Smart5Grid platform and specifically the Open Service Repository (OSR) is the difficulty and complexity in developing, testing and deploying modular 5G services and software applications on securely compartmentalized experimental infrastructure equal to the infrastructure used in real production environments. Delivering new services and new features on existing ones, is often slow and requires rigorous manual and multi-step testing processes. Developers of such software products use many different tools whose deployment and maintenance requires technical expertise, time and financial expenditure from their companies. The lack of an integrated suite of such tools adds a significant overhead on working for developing such services VNFs or Network Apps. Access to existing applications, let alone access to their code, is very rare in niche markets such as the energy vertical industry.
Providing the right tools and solutions to the aforementioned issues could facilitate companies and organizations to become involved and contribute in a productive manner to build Network Applications that implement features for the efficient, flexible and easier to manage smart energy grids.
With this aim, four real life pilots supporting four valuable use cases has been successfully implemented, validating the use of such advanced virtualization techniques in real and operating power plants.
At the project end, some final remarks and consideration have been collected, starting from a series of keywords:
- Why 5G? 5G is not only about speed, but rather means a novel architecture able to support virtualization at the edge.
- 5G core implementation: while projects like Smart5Grid are investigating the use of such innovative approach, the Telco industry is struggling to sustain the business. 5G Core implementation seems not to be a priority at the moment.
- Orchestration: it represents, as an implicit assumption, the main feature for the Network Apps execution for supporting the edge-cloud implementation.
- Private networks: besides public 5G network, the private ones represents the most valuable segment for the developing of such virtualization techniques.
- Network Apps: while the project correctly demonstrated that Network Apps can facilitate the approach to virtualization, a standard model is far from being implemented. The 9 projects from the ICT-41-2020 – 5G PPP call propose different approaches and architectures; so far, there is not a convergence for these models as almost all projects are concluded. On our opinion, this could be a good challenge to be achieved in 6G projects, where a new project could analyse the different models and define a unique standard. In the meanwhile, as the Smart5Grid model is agnostic to the vertical, it has good chances to be implemented transversally in several industrial applications, with a high chance to succeed.
Providing the right tools and solutions to the aforementioned issues could facilitate companies and organizations to become involved and contribute in a productive manner to build Network Applications that implement features for the efficient, flexible and easier to manage smart energy grids.
With this aim, four real life pilots supporting four valuable use cases has been successfully implemented, validating the use of such advanced virtualization techniques in real and operating power plants.
At the project end, some final remarks and consideration have been collected, starting from a series of keywords:
- Why 5G? 5G is not only about speed, but rather means a novel architecture able to support virtualization at the edge.
- 5G core implementation: while projects like Smart5Grid are investigating the use of such innovative approach, the Telco industry is struggling to sustain the business. 5G Core implementation seems not to be a priority at the moment.
- Orchestration: it represents, as an implicit assumption, the main feature for the Network Apps execution for supporting the edge-cloud implementation.
- Private networks: besides public 5G network, the private ones represents the most valuable segment for the developing of such virtualization techniques.
- Network Apps: while the project correctly demonstrated that Network Apps can facilitate the approach to virtualization, a standard model is far from being implemented. The 9 projects from the ICT-41-2020 – 5G PPP call propose different approaches and architectures; so far, there is not a convergence for these models as almost all projects are concluded. On our opinion, this could be a good challenge to be achieved in 6G projects, where a new project could analyse the different models and define a unique standard. In the meanwhile, as the Smart5Grid model is agnostic to the vertical, it has good chances to be implemented transversally in several industrial applications, with a high chance to succeed.
In the phase of designing of the Smart5Grid Platform we have defined functional and non-functional requirements of the OSR and the Smart5Grid Platform User Interface (UI), the internal architecture of their software components, the application programming interfaces (APIs) to be used with external components and users and we have produced workflow diagrams that specify in detail all OSR and UI interactions.
The UI comprises of three main components, that is the front-end, the back-end and the database. The “View” of the application is the front-end web framework which communicates via REST API calls with the back-end server, acting as the Controller. The Model consists of the code in the back-end that implements the objects defined in the application. The Controller interacts with the Instances of the objects and such instances can be stored in the database.
(See attached Figure 1 - UI Architecture)
The OSR is the service responsible for the storage and management of all the NetApps and their included VNFs. It provides secure connection to authorized users, a code repository for the code of the applications, tracking of all changes, and log reporting to the users.
(See attached Figure 2 - OSR Architecture)
The A&A service is responsible for user authentication and role-based authorization on the operations provided by each OSR component.
(See attached Figure 3 - OSR Authentication & Authorization Service)
The NetApp/VNF Catalogue stores and links all NetApp and VNF information. NetApps and VNFs are stored in the Code Versioning Service, executable image files are stored in the Container and VM Image registries, and logs are stored in the Event Logging Service.
(See attached Figure 4 - OSR NetApp Catalogue)
(See attached Figure 5 - OSR Logging Service)
In the second reporting period (RP2), a large part of the work has focused on implementing and integrating the platform components, together with the implementation of the pilots’ sites and edge nodes, the development of the Network Application for supporting the pilots and their execution for validating the relevant KPIs. In parallel, as the project testbeds have been made available for third-parties’ experimenters for fostering the creation of a new market-segment for Network Apps, an extensive engagement activity has been performed.
In the final part of the period, the project collected the pilots’ results to deliver the final conclusions and recommendation to be disseminated.
At a glance, the following activities and main results were implemented:
- The Smart5Grid platform, composed by OSR, V&V and NAC have been successfully developed and integrated. This to facilitate the platform users, the OSR’s Graphic User Interface (GUI) have been extended, allowing a guided creation of a Network App Descriptor and performing the automating V&V cycle.
- Pre-piloting phase via Hardware-In-the-Loop (HIL): a series of preliminary simulations has been carried on to verify that the virtualization techniques used in the pilots’ implementation are compatible with the business requirements
- The Four real-life pilots have been successfully implemented, validating the underlying business use cases and the relative KPIs.
- Stakeholder engagement: a series of initiatives to foster the participation have been put on place, with the aim to maximize the impact on SMEs. Besides this, a ticketing system to provide support to the developers has been implemented. In spite of the relevant participation to the events (the stakeholder forum counted almost 100 participants), only one stakeholder decided to develop a Network Application.
The UI comprises of three main components, that is the front-end, the back-end and the database. The “View” of the application is the front-end web framework which communicates via REST API calls with the back-end server, acting as the Controller. The Model consists of the code in the back-end that implements the objects defined in the application. The Controller interacts with the Instances of the objects and such instances can be stored in the database.
(See attached Figure 1 - UI Architecture)
The OSR is the service responsible for the storage and management of all the NetApps and their included VNFs. It provides secure connection to authorized users, a code repository for the code of the applications, tracking of all changes, and log reporting to the users.
(See attached Figure 2 - OSR Architecture)
The A&A service is responsible for user authentication and role-based authorization on the operations provided by each OSR component.
(See attached Figure 3 - OSR Authentication & Authorization Service)
The NetApp/VNF Catalogue stores and links all NetApp and VNF information. NetApps and VNFs are stored in the Code Versioning Service, executable image files are stored in the Container and VM Image registries, and logs are stored in the Event Logging Service.
(See attached Figure 4 - OSR NetApp Catalogue)
(See attached Figure 5 - OSR Logging Service)
In the second reporting period (RP2), a large part of the work has focused on implementing and integrating the platform components, together with the implementation of the pilots’ sites and edge nodes, the development of the Network Application for supporting the pilots and their execution for validating the relevant KPIs. In parallel, as the project testbeds have been made available for third-parties’ experimenters for fostering the creation of a new market-segment for Network Apps, an extensive engagement activity has been performed.
In the final part of the period, the project collected the pilots’ results to deliver the final conclusions and recommendation to be disseminated.
At a glance, the following activities and main results were implemented:
- The Smart5Grid platform, composed by OSR, V&V and NAC have been successfully developed and integrated. This to facilitate the platform users, the OSR’s Graphic User Interface (GUI) have been extended, allowing a guided creation of a Network App Descriptor and performing the automating V&V cycle.
- Pre-piloting phase via Hardware-In-the-Loop (HIL): a series of preliminary simulations has been carried on to verify that the virtualization techniques used in the pilots’ implementation are compatible with the business requirements
- The Four real-life pilots have been successfully implemented, validating the underlying business use cases and the relative KPIs.
- Stakeholder engagement: a series of initiatives to foster the participation have been put on place, with the aim to maximize the impact on SMEs. Besides this, a ticketing system to provide support to the developers has been implemented. In spite of the relevant participation to the events (the stakeholder forum counted almost 100 participants), only one stakeholder decided to develop a Network Application.
OSR provided users with a one-stop-shop solution with all the state-of-the-art tools used in the software industry combined to provide an easy-to-use platform. The integration of the OSR with the experimental platform did help developers, engineers and stakeholders to deploy and test their applications in environments that simulate production-level conditions.
In the final part of the project, the testbeds and the platforms have been made available to third parties for develop and test their own Network Apps. Those Network Apps offered as open-source code, through public collaboration could help companies fix bugs, add features, and improve the performance of their applications within a relatively short amount of time. Open-source Network Apps could also help newcomers and SMEs get involved, gain experience and create new products in an industry traditionally considered hard to enter.
In the final part of the project, the testbeds and the platforms have been made available to third parties for develop and test their own Network Apps. Those Network Apps offered as open-source code, through public collaboration could help companies fix bugs, add features, and improve the performance of their applications within a relatively short amount of time. Open-source Network Apps could also help newcomers and SMEs get involved, gain experience and create new products in an industry traditionally considered hard to enter.