Page 28 - 5G Basics - Core Network Aspects

1 Core network aspects

First is a unified operation and management system from the perspective of highly efficient management;
the other is a sophisticated control interface and an inheritance system of operator knowledge and
know-how for network operation and management by lower-skilled operators.
Below are candidates for FNs to achieve these goals:
a) Common interface for operation and management [b-TMF NGOSS] and [b-Nishikawa]

This provides the high-efficient operation and management to adapt all network systems that
provide different services. The database technology is the key to automatically migrate old system
data containing user and infrastructure information to the new system.
b) Sophisticated control interface and inheritance system of operator knowledge and know-how
[b-Kipler] and [b-Kubo].
In order to make network control and management of various network systems and services easier for
operators without special skills, FN operation systems should have autonomous control and self-stabilizing
mechanisms. Sophisticated and friendly control interfaces will also help in some network operation and
management tasks. One viable approach is "visualization" of various network statuses, as follows:
– Visualization of system management (software-level technology)
Network visualization technology supports the work of the system administrator and improves work
efficiency by easily visualizing the state of the network. Visualization technology includes monitoring
of networks, fault localization, and network system automation.
– Visualization of infrastructure management (hardware-level technology)
Hardware-based visualization technology is also efficient for supporting field engineers. This
includes monitoring of fibre and states of communications, fault localization, and fibre
identification. It also makes it easy to identify the location of the failure, particularly if it is on the
network side or in user devices, which reduces maintenance costs.

I.5 Network optimization (optimization)

The appearance of new services will increase the bandwidth required by many users, while others will remain
satisfied with the current bandwidth, which widens the variety of bandwidth requirements among users.
Current networks have been designed to meet maximum user needs and the capacity of the equipment is
over-specified for most services. Network equipment in the future will face various physical limitations such
as capacity of optical fibre, operation frequency of optical and electrical devices, and power consumption.
Future networks should therefore be designed to improve effectiveness of use in providing optimal (i.e., not
abundant) capabilities for user needs.
Three promising areas can address the above issues: device-level optimization, system-level optimization,
and network-level optimization.
a) Device-level optimization [b-Kimura]
This operation rate optimization technique, composed of an optical layer, electrical layer, and hybrid
optical/electrical layer, provides the minimum needed bandwidth for services and applications.
b) System-level optimization [b-Gunaratne]

Though encrypting all data in networks is the ultimate solution against security threats, data are
currently selectively encrypted via higher layer functions, and higher layers are too slow to encrypt
everything. Optimizing security mechanisms, i.e., concentrating encryption functions in lower-layer
processing (physical layer processing technique such as optical code division multiplexing (OCDM)
transmission technology), and stopping higher-layer encryption, would enable high security to be
achieved at the same time as low latency and power efficiency.

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