Open ICT-PaaS platform enabling 5G network slicing

Abstract

With a traditional static model of telecommunications service, it is difficult to deal with the uncertain factors and differentiation of massive mobile Internet services. Cloud computing, software-defined networking (SDN), and network function virtualisation (NFV) drive telecom networks to a new round of network reconstruction. The IaaS platform can partially solve the 'production tool' problem of operators; however, the 'production relationship' problem persists. After infrastructure reconstruction is completed, due to the 5G service vision of networks on demand and sliced networks, a PaaS environment is introduced to implement a new-generation of virtual network functions (VNFs). Based on the analysis of the necessity and feasibility of an Information and Communications Technology PaaS (ICT-PaaS) Platform, following the technical trend of 5G, the ICT-PaaS platform is proposed to construct a future network featuring elasticity, automation, flexibility, and openness. The adoption of lightweight VNF design ideas based on componentisation, containerisation, and microservice can better satisfy the requirements of flexible 'network slicing' than the traditional heavy monolith VNF-based on VMs. The measured results show that the optimisation implementations can significantly improve network forwarding performance. From the evaluation result of the cost benefits of it is possible to highlight potentials of the platform introduction.