Zero-touch security and trust for ubiquitous computing and connectivity in 5G networks.

Project Information

5GZORRO

Grant agreement ID: 871533

DOI

10.3030/871533

Project closed

EC signature date 29 October 2019

Start date 1 November 2019

End date 31 October 2022

Funded under

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

Total cost

€ 4 999 965,00

EU contribution

€ 4 999 965,00

Coordinated by

FUNDACIO PRIVADA I2CAT, INTERNET I INNOVACIO DIGITAL A CATALUNYA
Spain

Periodic Reporting for period 2 - 5GZORRO (Zero-touch security and trust for ubiquitous computing and connectivity in 5G networks.)

Reporting period: 2021-05-01 to 2022-10-31

Summary of the context and overall objectives of the project

The long-term vision for pervasive computing, connectivity, and corresponding services in 5G calls for the flexible, on-demand integration of ubiquitous compute, storage and network resources, transparently crossing the borders of administrative domains. To realise this vision, the next generation 5G networks have to embrace full automation and implement extensive zero-touch network and service management while facilitating the integration of 3rd party edge resources to satisfy high mobility of users and terminals. Furthermore, the lack of a framework to establish distributed trust for multi-domain resource sharing represents a barrier to the original vision of 5G.

With the aim of covering these gaps, the main objective of 5GZORRO project is to ensure robust, reliable, and secure communications in future 5G. The 5GZORRO architecture considers a wide set of services, which allow to support cross-domain network slicing, resource and service offering via marketplaces anchored in DLT, discovery, AI-based intelligent selection and trading of resources and Services via Smart Contracts, zero-touch network slice and service lifecycle management, cross-stakeholder e-license management, SLA monitoring & AI-driven breach prediction, security and trust across multiple domains.

On the technical validation side, the consortium dedicated its efforts towards the implementation, testing and validation of the three project use cases (Smart Contracts for Ubiquitous Computing/Connectivity, Dynamic Spectrum allocation, Pervasive vCDN Services) which allowed to assess the 5GZORRO architecture for the flexible and multi-stakeholder combination and composition of resources and services in 5G networks. In addition to the technical feasibility validation of the 5GZORRO solution, the business and legal aspects were also thoroughly explored and reported. As a conclusion, we can state that 5GZORRO solution is ready to evolve into a market ready solution, as it works from a technological point of view and, equally important, complies with legal aspects and solves real problems with a reduced investment.

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

From the start, the project worked on the use cases to identify their motivation and a set of scenarios to identify business and system technical requirements. On top of these, the design of the overall platform architecture has been completed in several iterations, taking into account the feedback from the implementation of the architecture and its components. The final 5GZORRO high level reference architecture is depicted in the Figure 1 attached.

For the Evolved 5G Services layer's activities, the efforts have been focused on defining and implementing functionalities and software modules for product offer registration, discovery and ordering, SLA breach prediction and monitoring. It also focused on decentralised Marketplace and Governance functionalities including the Catalogue, Smart Contracts management, identity and permission management. Figure 2 reflects the different software modules implemented under the evolved 5G services layer (attached). The activities related to Zero Touch Automation with Trust, Security and AI focused on design and implementation within the following key areas related to the 5GZORRO platform: trust and security management, AI-driven zero-touch service management capabilities, service/slice orchestration functions with e-licensing management. The Use Cases activities focused on testing and validating the 5GZORRO platform functionalities and capabilities for the three defined use cases in the two target testbeds (5GBarcelona and 5TONIC) with special efforts dedicated to the assessment of the project and platform KPIs. The very final versions of the software prototypes have been made available at the end of the project (available on https://github.com/5GZORRO).

The consortium investigated the legal compliance within European regulation that deals with AI, DLTs, smart contracts, spectrum, ensuring that the platform can operate in the European market. Business model assessment, as well as techno-economic analysis for the 5GZORRO platform have been thoroughly performed. On the dissemination front, the project published a total of 24 scientific papers, participated in 38 events (6 organised by the consortium), contributed to several working groups and whitepapers from 5GPPP and 6G-IA, with close collaborations with other H2020 projects. In terms of communication, the project achieved great results with social media posts and engagement, having almost 50.000 views on YouTube. In relation to standardisation and Open Sources Communities engagement, the consortium was involved in 24 adopted standards contributions, of which we highlight the RFC 9316 published by IETF, a proof of concept reported to ETSI ZSM and 2 ETSI PDL documents, among others.

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)

5GZORRO bring several value propositions, including: increased network reliability and service scalability across domains with security and trust, lower cost of development, maintenance and operation of network resources with zero-touch automation, best-practice spectrum management and trading impacting on 5G spectrum capital expenditure, new opportunities for cross-sector and open innovation from different parties by enabling trusted environments and smart contracts.

The business aspect was also considered in order to technically develop a solution that is well received in the market. The thorough exploration and validation of business and legal aspects, will help to boost the intended impact and provide a starting point to enhance innovation capacity, competitive European economy growth and new market opportunities. The 5GZORRO platform is ready to evolve into a market ready solution, as it works from a technological point of view and complies with legal aspects.

In light of the results achieved, the following impact opportunities are envisioned.

Evolution of networks towards OTT like platforms integrating connectivity, storage and computing resources, opening for new service models to telecom/ISP providers: the 5GZORRO platform enables the required business agility providing a reliable multi-stakeholder resource marketplace to acquire required resources in a secure way.

Network scalability towards high number of resource constrained devices, multiplicity of service requirements, and new connectivity paradigms (user controlled): 5GZORRO enables the extension of network slices on demand across administrative domains, providing capabilities to manage edge resources as a means to expand stakeholder infrastructures and services to dynamically satisfy user requirements.

Characterisation and availability of secure and trusted environments for software based virtualised networks, enabling trusted multi-tenancy: 5GZORRO allows to establish Zero Trust between multiple stakeholders, and integrates automated security management. A cloud-based e-licensing mechanism regulates business relationships for execution of virtualized network functions across multiple stakeholders.

Improvements of radio spectrum usage, novel strategies for coverage/service extension, support of novel use cases and mobile edge cloud applications, usability of today unexplored spectrum: 5GZORRO enables real-time spectrum leasing and trading through Non-fungible Tokens anchored on DLT. This concept provides the models and mechanism to ensure regulated leasing of the spectrum in a digital manner in the 5GZORRO marketplace.

5GZORRO Final Architecture

5GZORRO Evolved 5G Service Layer