Trailblazing Catalyst storms 5G monetization with automation and TOSCA

5G ride on! – Phase III is the latest in an award-winning series of proof of concept Catalyst projects. True to form, this latest iteration pushes the boundaries of automation on several fronts. The first is in monetizing 5G services, using a scenario that includes automating edge activation to assure reliable communications during localized crises. This is enabled through advanced slice templates and better closed loop mechanisms, among other things. In 2019, 5G Riders on the storm explored how communications service providers (CSPs) can use 5G network slicing to guarantee critical public safety services during emergencies caused by extreme weather. This won the award for the Best Contribution to TM Forum assets because of its pioneering work regarding network slices at the management and network management layers. 5G ride on! – Phase III builds on its predecessors, championed by BT, Orange and Telecom Italia, supported by participants Asiainfo International, Huawei, Incognito, MDS Global, and TEOCO. This time the team wanted to use a commercial service scenario and after much debate chose the electric vehicle (EV) infrastructure and ecosystem. They are complex, involving drivers, energy companies, the vehicle provider, the environment the cars operate in and other service providers. The success of EV depends on reliable communications at many stages of their use, as shown below.

BT, Orange and Telecom Italia helped build the business scenarios around the fact that EVs can be affected by localized problems such as flooding due to a burst water main or a power outage. Without communications, it is hard for people to find active charging points, which is an issue as EVs have a limited range between charges. Drivers also want to know the price, how long the lines are at the charging stations, where the next charging station is, which payment mechanisms are in use and more, including the payment transaction itself – and they all depend on the charging station maintaining communications at all times.

Technical aspects

Business and operational models aside, the team wanted to look at technical aspects too. Network automation is key and some of the team is involved in the TM Forum Autonomous Networks Project. The last phase of the Catalyst demonstrated closed loop and slice management for 5G technologies, and they were carried over into this latest phase, along with a new aspect of automated activation of mobile edge computing (MEC) sites to support areas with localized issues.

The emphasis in Phase III is how better to define automation and improve the use of more advanced closed loop techniques for enhanced management of network automation, and these aspects will be shown in the fall Catalyst demonstrations.

Another technical area that built on previous work is templates. Past phases used the generic slice template (GST) developed by the GSMA with most of the work in this area done by the team members from Huawei, including Kevin McDonnell, who was also personally recognised for his Outstanding Contribution by TM Forum. The team suggested some extensions to the GST, as well how it could be better organized, which were published in a TM Forum Exploratory Report, Focus on Services not Slices in December 2019.

Software management

Yuval Stein is AVP Technologies at TEOCO. He has been involved in all the phases of the Catalyst, and is the project leader for Phase III. He says, “We wanted to take these GSTs and use them in our software management systems, especially in the orchestrator to orchestrate systems. The work on the previous phase was done in JavaScript Object Notation, which is better known as JSON.

“This time for the orchestration, we have Paul Jordan in the team from BT who is a TOSCA [Topology and Orchestration Specification for Cloud Applications] expert. He helped us take the JSON template and use it in the actual orchestration code, so it is no longer a theoretical blueprint but deployable code.”

TOSCA is an OASIS standard language to describe a topology of cloud-based web services, their components and relationships.

Sophisticated use case

Stein continues, “There were some challenges with this approach, which has been little used in the past as TOSCA is not a programming language – it’s an orchestration tool – and so has some limitations. We are trying to use TOSCA in ways that are more advanced than what people tried to do with it previously.” “We have implemented a more sophisticated use case that requires more complex coordination among the orchestration systems such as the end to end to the MEC orchestrator.” He concluded, “This is a worthwhile cause and a technical advance – to take the templates and make them like practical deliveries”.

Now available on demand: Watch the Catalyst team showcase their project

In this video, the 5G Riders on the storm team tell the story of their Award-winning Catalyst.