5G Tango

 

5GTANGO puts forth the flexible programmability of 5G networks with:

1. An NFV-enabled SERVICE DEVELOPMENT KIT (SDK)
2. A STORE PLATFORM with advanced VALIDATION AND VERIFICATION MECHANISMS for VNFs/Network Services qualification (including 3rd party contributions), and
3. A modular SERVICE PLATFORM with an innovative ORCHESTRATOR in order to bridge the gap between business needs and network operational management systems.

 

5GTANGO outcome

We propose an INTEGRATED VENDOR-INDEPENDENT PLATFORM where the outcome of the development kit that is a packaged NFV forwarding graph of composed services, is automatically tested and validated in the Store for their posterior deployment with a customizable orchestrator compatible with common existing Virtual Infrastructure Managers (VIM) and SDN controllers in the market.

 

5GTANGO NFV DevOps workflow

The combination of the proposed toolkit, validation Store and the service platform realises an EXTENDED multi-modal NFV DEVOPS MODEL between service developers, telecom operators and vertical industries, increasing operational efficiency, facilitating the implementation and validation of new services and accelerating the adoption of NFV technologies.

Software Defined Networking (SDN) and Network Function Virtualization (NFV) are emerging as major transformational technologies towards “software networks”, a new paradigm that is evolving the telecom sector with new network capabilities and business opportunities. 5GTANGO addresses the significant challenges associated with both the development and deployment of the complex services envisioned for 5G networks and empowered by these technologies. Core objectives include:

1. Reduce time to market for networked services by shortening service development cycle and by qualifying network services to be adopted
2. Reduce entry barrier to third party developers and support the creation and composition of Virtual Network Functions (VNFs) and application elements as “network services”
3. To enable new business opportunities with the customisation and adaptation of the network to vertical application requirements.
4. Accelerate the NFV uptake in industry via ‘extended’ DevOps model and validation at scale of network service capabilities of 5GTANGO platform in vertical show cases
5. Generate impact and standardization of project results
6. Support the 5G PPP programme

 

Optare Solutions, taking advantage of the knowledge acquired in the field of orchestration of NFV services in projects such as SONATA (with participants such as NEC, Thales, Nokia, Altice, Telefonica, BT), or Veo5G (with infrastructure operator Cellnex), join the 5GTango project for the creation of the Validation & Verification store.

 

One of the many challenges facing the adoption of 5G is the validation and verification of 5G services in different platforms and testbeds. Validation is sometimes expressed by the query “Are you building the right thing?”. Verification is similarly expressed as “Are you building it right?”. 5G services typically leverage multiple complex Virtual Network Functions (VNF’s) and Network Services (NS’s). These services need not only to work across different execution platforms but also must work in a verifiable and repeatable manner. Service Operators must be confident that VNFs and NSs will behave as expected when services are launched in production. As such, validation of these services proves that the service conforms to what was desired by the customer, i.e. “the right thing”. The verification of these services proves that the service works and is fit for production, i.e. “built right”

 

The 5GTANGO V&V platform confronts the multidimensional challenges posed by 5G services and networks to help achieve the cloud-native agility [17] requested by our end-users to be competitive in their respective marketplaces. The platform is developed by catering to the respective needs of different operators and different services. Using an agile development process, combined with Continuous Integration and Continuous Delivery (CI/CD) best practices, the V&V platform provides a vehicle for this service-agnostic evolution of the platform, whilst also allowing platform extensibility where specific features for tests can be added incrementally over time. The V&V platform addresses the very real problem of test verification for service operators, and in doing so it can also increase the confidence operators have in deploying third-party provided network services. A better, more automated, test qualification platform will help promote the adoption of 5GTANGO V&V Platform across multiple vertical segments, creating a long-lasting ecosystem where the software evolves and matures far beyond the project development timeframe.