Page 232 - ITU-T Focus Group IMT-2020 Deliverables

3 ITU-T Focus Group IMT-2020 Deliverables

Based on the above classification, the definitions of orchestration and management are specified.

Management: Management is managing the network functions in both physical and virtual infrastructure
including compute, storage, and network resources within one operator’s infrastructure sub-domain. Overall
coordination and adaptation for configuration and event reporting are achieved between network function
infrastructure and network management systems. It includes the collection and forwarding of performance
measurements and events. Network function lifecycle management is included with network function
instance management. Network management system is authorized to exercise control over and/or collect
management information from another system. It is tightly connected with BSS/OSS such that the most
efficient and effective way to access, control, deploy, schedule and bind resources is chosen as requested by
customers.

Orchestration: Orchestration is the automated arrangement, coordination, and management of complex
network systems including middleware for both physical and virtual infrastructure. It is often discussed as
having an inherent intelligence or even implicitly autonomic control. Orchestration results in automation
with control network systems. Orchestration is the key function in management plane. Orchestrator manages
network service lifecycle and coordinates the management of network service life cycle, network function
lifecycle and network function infrastructure resources to ensure optimized allocation of the necessary
resources and connectivity. It is also tightly connected to OSS/BSS for service management.

7 IMT-2020 Network Management General Architecture
IMT-2020 network shall provide network services demanding diverse requirements, by using network
functions instantiated at right place. IMT-2020 infrastructure will provide required infrastructure resources
to instantiate the network functions. Network operators can provision and operate many different network
slices according to their business strategies.

Network slicing enables the operator to create logically partitioned networks customized to provide
optimized solutions for different market scenarios which demand diverse requirements in terms of service
characteristics, required functionality, performance and isolation issues.
The functional architecture of IMT-2020 network shall provide a complete set of network functions required
to support all IMT-2020 services. A network slice is comprised of only necessary network functions. They are
collected from a complete set of network functions in the IMT-2020 network functional architecture, and
orchestrated for the particular service and purpose.

The general framework of IMT-2020 can be represented by two separate architecture levels, i.e. ‘slice
orchestration and management’ level and ‘network slice instances’ level as shown in Figure 4. Functions for
creating and managing network slice instances the functions instantiated in the network slice instance are
mapped to respective architecture level.

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