5GTANGO

Link to project website: www.5gtango.eu

Contact: 5gtango-Contact@5g-ppp.eu

Social Media:  5Gtango on Twitter and 5Gtango on Linkedin

5GTANGO enables the flexible programmability of 5G networks by delivering an integrated NFV Service Platform, SONATA, which includes:

1. An NFV-enabled Service Development Kit (SDK) to support developers with the creation of Virtual Network Functions (VNF)/Network Services (NS).
2. A Validation and Verification (V&V) Platform with advanced mechanisms for VNF/NS testing and qualification.
3. A modular Service Platform with a MANO (Management and Orchestration) framework, slicing support and automation capabilities to fully manage the life-cycle of VNFs/NSs.

The combination of these three main components realizes an extended NFV DevOps (Development and Operations) model for Telecom that facilitates the implementation, validation and agile management of innovative services, increases the productivity and operational efficiency, reduces the time to market of services and allows the creation of an ecosystem to encourage collaboration and innovation.

5GTANGO project is an open source project. The final release, SONATA 5.1, was announced in January 2020.

5GTANGO results have been validated with three diverse but complementary pilots:

1. The Immersive media pilot showcases how 5G networks can enhance the experience of end users regarding media services by providing not just high-quality live stream video in 360º environments, but also including additional content, like social media channels, to the live video streams. This allows the end users, for example, to enjoy sports events in a new dimension, creating an immersive experience.The main achievement here is the ability to offer a high QoS to the end user. We run a transcoding pipeline for each type of video which allows to provide more quality and bit rate of the 360 video and improves the performance of the streaming engine.As main 5G capabilities and functionalities, we can highlight the support of Container-based Network functions using Kubernetes and the deployment of multiple network slices. This enables a quicker service deployment and facilitates scaling when needed.

2. The Industry 4.0 pilot stablishes the link between the “old” manufacturing industry and the “new” 5G technologies. The smart-factory pilot introduces different use cases that highlight the benefits of using 5GTANGO, proving its adaptability and functionality in such scenarios and introducing a novel network design for a factory. First, the management and orchestration of a factory network for manifold machines and machine parks is demonstrated. Then, two specific use cases illustrate the advantages of such a network management:  In one case, a threat endangers the integrity of the network and facilitates counter-measures; in the other case, an on-demand service is needed for machine maintenance procedures and the service can be easily enabled for the necessary period of time.In this pilot, different 5G functionalities are used. For example, the use of slicing to distinguish between constant machine data traffic and on-demand traffic with specific QoS requirements. Further, the “softwarization” of the network components fosters agility and flexibility of network management. The security aspects are explicitly addressed in one use case on threat detection and handling.

3. The Communications suite pilot deploys a communication system which includes advanced collaborative features such as multi-conference, screen sharing and whiteboard, for real-time communications. This pilot provides a number of use cases in the domain of the multimedia real time communications that show an efficient management of the services according to the network capabilities and the quality requirements of the users.Network slicing is one of the most innovative and challenging features showed in the pilot. If offers the possibility to provide different QoS classes on demand making use of the slicing capabilities and all the automatic procedures provided by 5GTANGO. This can give a meaningful foundation to be able to deliver QoE-aware services in short term in the context of real time communications.

Project Participants: