5G-INDUCE provided an end-to-end orchestration platform over enabling experimentation infrastructures for advanced 5G Network Applications (nApps) that can be applied for the realisation of extensive 5G Use Cases (UCs) in the broader Industry 4.0 sector, leading to technological and business validation of 5G technologies by multiple collaborating tenants. Focus has been given on validation of the 5G-readiness of both telecom operators and application providers, aiming to bridge identified gaps in their interaction through a solution that is going to facilitate smooth porting of nApps in 5G Industry 4.0 ecosystems. In line with the principle of separation of concerns between the cloud-native vertical applications’ domain and the networking domain, the complete 5G-INDUCE platform, which provides the end-user driven nApp onboarding and lifecycle management of the nApps over the southbound 5G infrastructures, is composed of two parts: the Network Applications Orchestrator (NAO) and the Operations Support System (OSS) modules. The NAO deals with nApp onboarding and deployment requests, allowing nApps to negotiate and obtain from the OSS both the needed computing resources at the edge facilities where to run nApp components, and connectivity among such resources and User Equipment (UE). The OSS deals with the tasks of analysing operational and performance (soft and hard) constraints expressed by the NAO slice request and consequently selecting the most suitable computing facilities and network services complying with the requirements. Key innovative features of the platform include:
- the automated translation of nApp micro-services into deployment requests for the OSS, annotated with QoS and operational requirements,
- the generation of end user- or policy-based requests by the NAO to the OSS for reconfiguration of the deployed resources at run-time,
- the capability of the OSS to select/deselect proper resources at edge facilities updating/creating/deleting network services,
- the dynamic reconfiguration of network slices to transparently/smoothly redirect UE-incoming/outgoing traffic during the reconfiguration phases,
- the introduction of the NFV Convergence Layer (NFVCL), for driving NFV service orchestration in all the lifecycle phases over external network orchestrators (e.g. ETSI MANO) and through standard interfaces, adaptively exploiting the programmability level offered by the underlying network infrastructure(s).
To demonstrate the applicability and potentiality of the platform, as well as to provide quantitative evaluations of Key Performance Indicators (KPIs), the project has chosen eight UCs from the industrial sector, whose constituent nApps have been implemented as chains of micro-services, deployed by means of the NAO, and enabled to create the needed network slices and allocate corresponding network resources by the OSS. All UCs have been experimentally evaluated and demonstrated over 3 available Experimentation Facilities (ExFas) that were created by the project in Spain, Greece and Italy, respectively, allowing the measurement of significant KPIs.
