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Enabling Vertical Industries Adoption of 5G Technologies: A Cartography of Evolving Solutions

Authors:

Abstract

5G network technologies are evolving in a tremendous pace, enhancing the potential for being adopted and exploited by vertical industries and serve advance networking requirements needs. Towards this direction, a set of 5G PPP projects are providing contributions for tackling aspects related to the overall lifecycle of 5G vertical applications design, development and deployment, including the activation and management of the appropriate network services. In this paper, a cartography of a set of novel solutions facilitating the adoption of 5G technologies by vertical industries is presented, aiming at identifying set of challenges and relevant solutions as well as potential synergies among the related projects.
978-1-5386-1478-5/18/$31.00 ©2018 IEEE
Enabling Vertical Industries Adoption of 5G
Technologies: a Cartography of evolving solutions
Anastasios Zafeiropoulos, Panagiotis
Gouvas, Eleni Fotopoulou, George
Tsiolis, Thanos Xirofotos
UBITECH
Athens, Greece
Stamatia Rizou
Singular Logic S.A.
Athens, Greece
Jose Bonnet
Altice Labs
Portugal
Anastasius Gavras, Maria Joao
Barros
EURESCOM
Heidelberg, Germany
Gino Carrozzo
Nextworks
Pisa, Italy
Xavier Costa-Perez
NEC Laboratories Europe
Heidelberg, Germany
xavier.costa@neclab.eu
Athul Prasad
Access Research, NOKIA Bell Labs
Espoo, Finland
Marco Gramaglia
Universidad Carlos III de Madrid
Madrid, Spain
Anna Tzanakaki, Dimitra
Simeonidou
University of Bristol
Bristol, UK
John Cosmas
College of Engineering, Design and
Physical Sciences
Brunel University, UK
Mikael Fallgren
Ericsson Research
Ericsson AB
Stockholm, Sweden
Raul Muñoz, Ricard Vilalta
Centre Tecnològic de
Telecomunicacions de Catalunya
Castelldefels (Barcelona), Spain
Abstract5G network technologies are evolving in a tremendous
pace, enhancing the potential for being adopted and exploited by
vertical industries and serve advance networking requirements needs.
Towards this direction, a set of 5G PPP projects are providing
contributions for tackling aspects related to the overall lifecycle of
5G vertical applications design, development and deployment,
including the activation and management of the appropriate network
services. In this paper, a cartography of a set of novel solutions
facilitating the adoption of 5G technologies by vertical industries is
presented, aiming at identifying set of challenges and relevant
solutions as well as potential synergies among the related projects.
Keywords—5G PPP, SDN, NFV, MEC Orchestration, Software
Development Kit, Vertical Industries
I.
I
NTRODUCTION
5G network design and evolution is considered as a key
enabler to support the introduction of digital technologies in
economic and societal processes, and it is leading to the fourth
industrial revolution across multiple sectors, as reported in the
“5G empowering vertical industries” whitepaper produced by
the 5G-PPP association [1]. The deep integration of verticals
with the underlying new generation network is considered as
one of the key differentiators between 4G and 5G systems to
open truly global markets for innovative digital business
models. By cementing strong relationships between vendors,
operators and verticals, 5G will open the field to new business
value propositions [1]. However, to achieve the proper
integration of verticals with the 5G network, the specific
requirements, challenges and Key Performance Indicators
(KPI) of the various application scenarios have to be
considered. Given that 5G networks will be the platform
enabling growth in many industries, the set of services per
vertical industry is going to cater for a diverse set of
requirements in terms of provisioning and management of
infrastructure resources [2]. Such requirements may span from
radio access network requirements to a set of deployment
constraints in the edge, transport and core infrastructure. To
fulfil the set of identified requirements while taking into
account the peculiarities associated with each vertical industry,
5G networks have to be operated by intelligent orchestration
platforms that are able to support end-to-end services provision
over programmable infrastructure [3]. By leveraging
virtualization and softwarization technologies, developers and
operators will better match needs and capabilities, building
application-aware networks and network-aware applications.
This joint power is considered one of the main drivers of
innovations enabled by 5G, as stated at the “View on 5G
Architecture” of the 5G PPP Architecture Working Group [3].
Towards this direction, in all the network parts, there is a
transition from today’s “network of entities” to a “network of
(virtual) functions” approach, where a network service can be
dynamically composed on an “on-demand”, “on-the-fly” basis
[3]. Such a composition has to be realized taking into account
requirements denoted on behalf of the vertical industries and
facilitated by a service-specific grouping of network functions
to logical entities and the mapping of logical to physical
200
architecture, which is in full accordance with the envisioned
ETSI Network Functions Virtualization (NFV) architectural
framework [4].
The term network slice is introduced to serve such a diverse
ecosystem. A network slice is a part of the infrastructure
(consisting mainly of virtualized resources, virtual/physical
network functions and network services) that aims to support a
set of services and meet the desired KPIs of the service
providers. A network slice is created on demand based on the
available network, compute and storage resources and the
requirements imposed on behalf of the services provider [5].
Taking into account the aforementioned needs, we propose
in this paper a cartography of 5G vertical industries which are
currently influencing the design of 5G systems and solutions in
a group of R&D projects of the 5G PPP programme (i.e.
MATILDA, 5GTANGO, 5GCity, 5G-Xcast, 5G-MoNArch,
SLICENET, 5G-MEDIA, IoRL, 5G-TRANSFORMER, 5G-
PICTURE, 5GCAR, BlueSPACE). The examined solutions
tackle the overall lifecycle of 5G vertical applications design,
development and deployment over 5G networks, including the
activation and management of the appropriate network
services. Specifically, solutions for the design and development
of network applications and network services (e.g. metamodels,
software development kits, validation and verification
frameworks), solutions supporting resources and network slices
creation and management and solutions regarding management
and orchestration mechanisms in the various layers (e.g.
Network Function Virtualization (NFV), Multi-access Edge
Computing (MEC), Software Defined Networking (SDN),
vertical applications orchestration) are included in the overall
cartography.
II. C
HALLENGES FOR
E
NABLING
V
ERTICALS TO
A
DOPT
5G
T
ECHNOLOGIES
A. Design and Development of Applications and Services
A crucial factor for enabling verticals to take advantage of
5G ecosystems relates to the capability to take into
consideration network requirements denoted in the vertical
applications software during their deployment and execution
over a 5G infrastructure. Such requirements can be denoted
based on the design and specification of appropriate
applications’ description metamodels, leading to set of
descriptors accompanying the developed software. These
applications can be considered 5G-ready in the sense that,
through the development of translation mechanisms between
application-specific requirements and programmable
infrastructure requirements, optimal deployment and operation
can be guaranteed. Specifically, the set of application-defined
requirements along with their prioritization can lead to the
instantiation of the appropriate network slice.
On the network operators’ side, a similar challenge relates
to the design and development of virtual network functions and
network services that can be verified and validated for being
used for serving a set of network requirements, as identified by
the vertical industries. Towards this direction, the specification
of metamodels and the design and implementation of
development kits as well as validation and verification
frameworks targeted to network services is necessary. In both
cases, the specification and exposure of open APIs for
accessing the various development, validation and verification
kits, as well as experimentation based on the available
software, is crucial. Through open APIs, a rich set of primitive
functions for network and vertical application layer services
can be made available, leading to composition of various
network services required by the applications, as well as
network-aware vertical applications. The developed software
can support SDN, NFV and MEC use cases, as well as use
cases associated with blending of such technologies for
meeting the imposed requirements from the various vertical
domains (e.g. automotive, media applications, emergency
communications, IoT).
B. Resources/Network Slices Management
With regards to the creation and management of network slices
targeted to requirements per vertical applications or cluster of
applications, a set of challenges are identified. For supporting
integration of vertical applications, there is a need for the
design and implementation of mechanisms able to translate a
slice intent to the appropriate network slice template. A slice
intent corresponds to the set of network requirements -in terms
of functionalities and deployment constraints- that have to be
fulfilled during the network slice instantiation process. The
translation involves the appropriate mapping of the provided
intent to a network slice template offered by a network
operator. This mapping has to be compatible with different
resource and slice management, potentially using advanced
QoS management frameworks [6].
For example, the multicast / broadcast of automotive data
would require dedicated slices, with pre-defined SLAs in terms
of transport network resources and related requirements.
Similar constraints would be applicable to verticals requiring
broadcast of reliability and latency constrained traffic with high
data rate requirements, such as VR. For such traffic, the need to
reserve edge cloud resources for possible caching needs to be
considered while setting up the network slice. For massive IoT
traffic such as device updates which has limited reliability
requirements, the data could be delivered using a best-effort
slice [7]. The slice could also be managed depending on the
delivery type. For example, a public safety slice could be used
for broadcast data, which essentially does not require uplink
resources.
Following this mapping, a set of challenges with regards to
the management of a network slice, includes: (i) the ability to
decompose a NS instantiation request to the required network
resources, as well as to collect and process information about
the running NSs, (ii) the ability to dynamically allocate or
deallocate resources (NW slices/shares and MEC nodes) to the
Service Providers according to their own SLA (QoS, etc.); (iii)
the ability to scale and dynamically reallocate resources to the
Service Providers to align with the changing needs of different
users and applications, as well as achieve graceful degradation
when resources are temporarily unavailable; (iv) the ability to
shorten creation times to support just-in-time deployment of
virtualized applications (e.g., in 100 of msecs or less) and
migration times (down to 100 msecs or less); (v) the provision
of isolation and security functionalities among the supported
201
slices/shares/MEC nodes (multitenancy) and (vi) the support of
resiliency mechanisms for maintaining normal network
operation even during and after network malfunctions.
C. Management and Orchestration
Given the creation of a network slice targeted to a set of
applications with specific network requirements, management
and orchestration mechanisms are applied in various layers,
namely applications/MEC orchestration, NFV/SDN
orchestration, transport xhaul resource orchestration, OSS/BSS
systems and network slices management. A set of orchestration
challenges exists for the supported mechanisms per layer,
while a major challenge is posed by the need for
interoperability and separation of concerns among the
orchestration mechanisms across layers. Given the
development of various solutions per layer, the specification
and standardization of open interfaces is important. Through
standardized interfaces, application deployment requests can be
provided by vertical industries’ stakeholders towards the
network operators’ slice management (or OSS/BSS) systems.
Subsequently, it is the role of network function orchestration
mechanisms on behalf of the operator to facilitate the activation
and management of the required network services.
Additionally, VNFs need to coexist with more traditional
PNFs, while NFV network services need to be orchestrated
considering jointly both type of network functions, i.e. PNFs
and VNFs, each of them with their specific constraints,
lifecycles, configuration and monitoring options.
With regards to slice management, it is also required to
design orchestration abstractions that simplify the orchestration
of sub-slices deployed across multiple administrative domains
to establish a single E2E slice. By establishing these
abstractions, which can hide the implementation of a given
service, it is possible for a single network operator to
effectively manage a service that is built of components owned
by other network operators with limited functional impact.
A key challenge is also regarding the availability of
intelligent orchestration mechanisms capable to implement the
lifecycle management and orchestration of 5G-based services,
including edge network and computing services (e.g. media
applications with strict QoS demands). Such challenges are
concerned with both vertical application orchestration
mechanisms and network services orchestration mechanisms.
The first ones are responsible for providing the appropriate
slice intent, including all the edge computing requirements as
well as layer 4-7 functionalities for optimally serving edge
computing applications, while the latter ones are responsible
for managing the required network services and functions (e.g.
mobility, live migration of virtual network functions). Dynamic
horizontal and vertical scaling capabilities, support of
autonomic and reactive orchestration mechanisms, optimal
deployment and runtime policies enforcement mechanisms as
well as provision of secure placement and management
mechanisms must be provided.
III. S
OFTWARE
D
EVELOPMENT AND
V
ALIDATION
K
ITS
A series of development, validation and verification
environments are developed within existing 5G PPP projects,
focusing mainly on the design and development of vertical
applications, the design and development of virtual network
functions and network services or both.
In MATILDA, a development environment for applications
denoted in the form of an application graph as well as VNFs
and NSs is provided. Each application graph consists of a set of
application components along with a set of graph links between
required and exposed component interfaces. Networking
requirements of the application graph -representing the vertical
application- are made available through a descriptor, leading to
the selection of the appropriate network slice. Design of
applications and network services is facilitated through a graph
composer, while the developed software is validated based on a
set of defined metamodels.
5GCity advocates a more data-centric programming model
based on Flow Based Programming (FBP) [8], in which
functional components can be assembled into applications by
connecting them using pipes. Under this model, applications
can adapt by rewiring components, adding/removing functions
or changing their implementation. 5GCity is extending the FBP
model by using smart-pipes, i.e. allowing in-network functions
such as aggregation and filtering. This can allow edge services
to adapt to resource availability, handle failures, and network
configuration changes (for example, node migration).
The 5GTANGO SDK aims at providing the developer with
a powerful set of tools to develop, test and evaluate NFV-based
Network Services. The resulting toolset builds further on the
ecosystem of SONATA SDK, and further evolves it, given the
changing state-of-the-art, modified programming model and
Service Platform. 5GTANGO develops also a Validation and
Verification (V&V) framework aiming at validating and
verifying appropriate operation of VNFs and NSs by ensuring
that they pass a range of tests and thus meet a core set of
requirements. The produced software is made available for
adoption and usage by instantiations of the 5GTANGO Service
Platform by Service Providers.
The 5G-MEDIA approach relies on an Application/Service
Development Kit (5G-MEDIA SDK) that assists the function,
application and service development, emulation, testing and
validation process. More specifically, the 5G-MEDIA SDK
tools allow to define Media Service forwarding graphs, to
prove and package the various functions as well as to emulate
behaviours of the virtualized infrastructure, to accelerate
application development and provide a testing environment to
be utilized prior to service deployment. The 5G-MEDIA SDK
tools enable also the use of the innovative concept of the
Function as a Service (FaaS) approach, where developers do
not care about the low-level details related to the virtual
computing and storage infrastructure, thus drastically
contributing to reduce the service creation time cycle and
maintenance effort. In this line, the service developers will be
able to create the so-called FaaS VNFs, i.e., VNFs that are
instantiated upon the detection of specific events.
IV. N
ETWORK
S
LICE
C
REATION AND
M
ANAGEMENT
Management and orchestration of slices is also triggered by
a set of projects by the need to map the configuration of a
202
network slice with the QoS requirements imposed through the
vertical applications.
SLICENET has defined technical use cases that detail the
step necessary to perform several operations in the scope of
slice creation and lifecycle management. To accommodate
slice management functions towards vertical applications and
operations, a one-stop API has been defined and partitioned
into two management spaces. A vertical one will be utilized by
vertical applications and use cases and a horizontal one will be
utilized by administrative domain operations. The difference
between the two spaces relates with the roles assigned to the
users. Each Network Function is exposed through two different
views, listing the technical details that need to be considered
for combining a NF with other NFs, as well as qualitative
details that can be used to influence the features of any higher-
level synthesis an NF is related. The One-Stop API, as used by
verticals is based on the provisioning of a marketplace
populated with NS Templates. Service selection is provided
along with a number of configurable parameters that are
exposed by NS and NSS templates. Thus, the customer is able
to define location, performance, QoS/QoE and scaling
parameters for the customization of the ordered service.
5GTANGO is going to support flexible mechanisms for
orchestrating and lifecycle management of network slices -
aligned with 3GPP activities-, taking into account vertical
application requirements and defined SLAs. Complex resource
allocation schemas, fitted into dedicated network slice
blueprints suitable for vertical industries are going to be
supported, along with novel isolation and customizable
features, E2E telemetry and monitoring, and E2E orchestration.
Novel slice operational features such as slice elasticity, and
scalable slice resource scheduling will be introduced. Within
the 5GTANGO Network Slice Manager, one can identify two
main components: a) the Slice Lifecycle Manager, which is
responsible for assigning services and applications to network
slices and for managing the lifecycle of these slices; and b) the
Slice2NS Mapper, which is responsible for mapping network
slices to NFV Network Services (NS).
In 5G-Xcast, slices are proposed to be adapted depending
on the traffic type, while in MATILDA the slice intent is going
to be created taking into account the network requirements of a
vertical applications (as denoted within the relevant descriptor).
In 5G-Xcast, the main idea is that based on the SLAs and
requirements of the traffic type, the network slice manager
[9][10] could interact with a service capability exposure
function, access and mobility management function (AMF)
within the 5G core network [6], to map the traffic to
appropriate Xcast QoS flows within each slice. The QoS flows
are mapped to Xcast data radio bearers, using the same
principles as in the case of the transport network to determine
the appropriate mode of over-the-air transmission. The main
idea here is to enable vertical and OTT service providers to
deliver traffic with controllable and configurable quality of
experience. Similarly, in MATILDA the slice intent will be
translated and mapped to the most relevant network slice
template advertised by a network operator, considering the set
of denoted QoS requirements.
In 5G-TRANSFORMER, the Vertical Slicer (VS) is a
common entry point for all vertical industries. It coordinates
and arbitrates vertical slice requests for the use of networking
and computing resources. Slices are requested at the VS
through a new defined interface using templates with simple
interconnection models, thus relieving the vertical industry
from specifying its slice details. A template including the
information provided by a vertical is called Vertical Service
Descriptor (VSD) and can be either based on basic components
and interfaces to compose the service, yielding to a service
graph similar to a forwarding graph from NFV, or be based on
a set of essential services used as building blocks to compose
more complex services. The VS is therefore in charge of
mapping the high-level requirements and placement constraints
of the slice template into a set of one or more VNF/VA graphs
and service function chains (SFCs).
In BlueSPACE, multi-tenancy and network slicing are
adopted to improve the efficiency in the utilization of fronthaul
resources. BlueSPACE will develop a Network Slice Manager
(NSM), working on top of the NFVO and responsible for the
lifecycle management of the network slices, following the
3GPP definition and modelling of network slices. The NSM is
in charge of managing the lifecycle of network slice instances
and translates their QoS requirements into suitable NFV
network services which are instantiated and scaled on-demand
at the NFVO, based on the evolution of the associated slice.
With regards to slice elasticity aspects, it is the main focus
of the 5G-MonArch project, through the introduction of a set of
scalable slice resource scheduling mechanisms, enabling the
network to adapt to fluctuating network loads without requiring
extreme resource overprovisioning.
Another set of approaches target also the slices creation for
specific domains. To address capacity limitations and high-
speed mobility requirements of future railway systems, in
5GPICTURE, a flexible control plane offering the ability to
create infrastructure slices over the heterogeneous network
platform is detailed. Through this approach, railway system
operators will be able to instantiate and operate several virtual
infrastructures enabling multi-tenancy, supporting jointly
energy and telecom services. 5GCity, focusing on Smart Cities
solutions, actuates the network slicing mechanisms through the
Neutral Host model, which consists in managing a network
infrastructure to host (without imposing technical and
economic constraints) any entity that uses it to provide its
services to its end users. In this model, the “Neutral Host”, i.e.
the infrastructure owner, is able to operate a partition of its
resources and to arrange them in a set of homogeneous tenants
(or slices) and expose them to a service provider which in turn
uses these resources to compose the portfolio of its services.
5GCAR, targets automotive safety and infotainment
improvements by developing an overall 5G V2X system
architecture including components for slice management in the
automotive domain. Finally, the IoRL Architecture allows the
home owner or building services manager to have connectivity
to different mobile network operators and to slice the building
radio-light network resources between them to facilitate the use
of different devices registered with different operators, as well
as exploiting the license-free VLC and mmWave spectrum for
accessing the home network.
203
V. M
ANAGEMENT AND
O
RCHESTRATION
As already mentioned in the existing challenges for
management and orchestration aspects, there is a need for
interoperability and separation of concerns among the
orchestration mechanisms across various layers (applications
/MEC orchestration, NFV/SDN orchestration, OSS/BSS
systems and network slices management). In this section, a
short reference to existing solutions provided by 5G PPP
projects is presented, aiming at categorizing the set of solutions
along with the main orchestration layers that they tackle.
MATILDA aims to provide an end to end orchestration
solution tackling aspects related to orchestration of the vertical
applications along with orchestration of the set of network
services activated within the created network slices. However,
focus is given mainly on the vertical applications orchestration
and its interoperability with existing OSS/BSS systems and
NFV orchestrators. The main objective is to manage the
optimal deployment and execution of vertical applications over
the 5G network slices incorporating intelligence through
various mechanisms. 5G-TRANSFORMER proposes an open
and flexible transport and computing platform at the “5G
Edge” tailored for verticals. It leverages on the concept of
network slicing and virtualization together with native SDN
and NFV control to flexibly distribute VNFs in MEC and
Cloud platforms. Abstraction levels allow “as a service”
resources provisioning for verticals’ applications; slicing
creation with required network functions and SLA; and
processed/filtered monitoring features. In order to build such an
architecture, it aims to extend the ETSI MANO design adding
new building blocks, namely the Vertical Slicer and the Service
Orchestrator interworking with the Mobile Transport Platform
defined in the 5G-Crosshaul project [2]. In both MATILDA
and 5G-TRANSFORMER, use cases stemming from the MEC
and Cloud Computing areas are representative of the main
considered applications.
The 5GTANGO Service Platform (SP) regards an open
source MANO framework that provides the service and
function orchestration features, plus all the needed
complementary and supporting features, like slice
management, policy and SLA management, user access
management and infrastructure adapter. SP’s clients are the
OSSs/BSSs of the platform owner, as well as the (also from
5GTANGO) SDK and the Validation and Verification (V&V)
platform that are targeted to development, validation and
verification of NSs. 5GTANGO SP is ETSI NFV compliant
and thus able to support all the NFV oriented use cases.
Through adopting the ETSI NFV MANO architecture,
5GCity is building a framework which will provide different
mechanisms in addition to lifecycle management, in order to
enable both data-centric programming model for edge-based
services, optimized resource consumption at edge and micro
datacenters (through unikernels) and a SDK towards third-
party users who will be enabled to dynamically deploy their
own services over the distributed edge city infrastructure.
Through the modular virtualization capabilities activated and
coordinated by the 5GCity orchestrator layer, it is possible to
monitor and manage multiple performance metrics of the 5G
virtualized infrastructure. These performance metrics can be
used to better differentiate the network capabilities, feed in the
decision engines for resource allocation and optimization, and
guarantee QoS/QoE targets to individual service requests.
In the context of the 5G-MEDIA project, the 5G-MEDIA
SDK interacts with the Service Virtualization Platform (5G-
MEDIA SVP), which hosts the components related to the
ETSI MANO framework (NFV Orchestrator, VNF
Manager(s), Infrastructure Manager(s) and Virtualization &
Abstraction Layer), the 5G-MEDIA NSD/VNFD Catalogue as
well as generic components that can be used by many
applications (e.g. monitoring and optimization components). A
specific innovation of the 5G-MEDIA project is the
integration of the Cognitive Network Optimizer (CNO) within
the SVP as part of the Media Service MAPE (Monitoring-
Analyse-Plan-Execute) component. The CNO comprises
mechanisms that take advantage of machine learning
techniques and optimization policies management and will
trigger the dynamic instantiation of VNF Forwarding Graphs
on the different NFVIs. The Cognitive Network Optimizer is
able to respond to dynamic changes of the environment and to
adapt the deployment of VNF forwarding graphs seamlessly to
continuously meet expected QoS requirements.
In the IoRL project, orchestration is based on the adoption
and extension of an NFV Orchestrator (NFVO). The NFVO
receives appropriate commands from the upper layer (i.e.
application layer) by use-case specific applications, which
include the Logic of each use-case and provide to the NFVO
appropriate NS descriptors, which initiates the VNF
instantiation with the appropriate network configuration.
The BlueSPACE project extends the ETSI NFV MANO
architecture to meet the specific transport technologies and
functionalities considered in the project. The proposed SDM/
WDM-enabled fronthaul network will be integrated with the
NFVO, since currently the NFVO-WIM interface is not
widely implemented and still lacking maturity. BlueSPACE
will study the integration of MEC applications with NFV
aiming at sharing the NFVI-PoPs and the NFV MANO stack.
BlueSPACE will also develop specific PNF managers, as well
as the agents that performs the actual configuration of the
PNFs. Finally, BlueSPACE will also extend NFVO and WIM
to enable the computation and provisioning of strict network
paths and cloud resource allocation algorithms by the NFVO.
VI. C
ARTOGRAPHY OF
5G
V
ERTICAL
E
NABLERS
The enabling technologies presented in the previous sections
represent a unique set of design and development assets,
validation and verification kits, resources and slice
management and orchestration mechanisms that can
significantly impact on the advent of 5G in production
networks for innovative services offered to the Verticals. These
research and innovation elements are part of coherent strategy
that is being realized by various R&D projects of the 5G PPP
programme. A visual cartography of the main research aspects
tackled by the projects presented in this paper is provided in
Figure 1, showing their main research focus. It should be noted
that the set of presented enablers does not represent an
exhaustive list of the full 5G PPP research and innovation
portfolio.
204
VII. C
ONCLUSIONS
Telecommunication and vertical industries are coming
together to enable improved solutions based on the evolving
5G technology. The network needs to be very flexible to meet
the wide range of challenges that the different verticals are
facing. Various solutions, such as slice management, edge
computing, network functions virtualization, and overall
orchestration are brought forward as mechanisms to enable this
flexible network. In the current manuscript, upon short
presentation of the challenges faced by verticals for exploiting
5G technologies, a cartography of the existing solutions under
development in various 5G PPP projects is provided.
Complementary solutions are designed covering the overall
lifecycle of vertical applications development, formal
description of network requirements and translation to the
creation of network slices, management of the required
network services per vertical domain, as well as orchestration
of a set of mechanisms. Based on the cartography, synergies
among projects can be examined leading to enhancing the
overall interoperability of the provided solutions.
Figure 1: Cartography of 5G Vertical Enablers
A
CKNOWLEDGMENT
This work was supported by the European Commission
through the 5G PPP Projects MATILDA (GA No. 761898),
5GTANGO (GA No. 761493), 5GCITY (GA No. 761508),
5GMEDIA (GA No. 761699), SLICENET (GA No. 761913),
5G-TRANSFORMER (GA No. 761536), 5G-Xcast (GA No.
761498), IoRL (GA No. 761992), 5G-PICTURE (GA No.
762057), 5G-MoNArch (GA No. 761445), 5GCAR (GA No.
761510), BlueSPACE (GA No. 762055).
R
EFERENCES
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Description of Network Slicing Concept
  • Ngmn Alliance
NGMN Alliance, Description of Network Slicing Concept, January 2016, Online: https://www.ngmn.org/uploads/media/160113_Network_Slicing_v1_0.p df
Flow-based programming
  • morrison
Morrison, J. P. (1994). Flow-based programming. In Proc. 1st International Workshop on Software Engineering for Parallel and Distributed Systems (pp. 25-29)