Page 58 - ITU-T Focus Group IMT-2020 Deliverables

2 ITU-T Focus Group IMT-2020 Deliverables

– Control Support

The Resource Plane Control Support (RP-CS) interacts with 5G-CP via standard interface. It provides data
model, or information model, of the 5G network resources, which are to be abstracted in the Control Plane.
It may perform resource abstraction, instead of CP, in case when it is supported by the underlying resource
technology.
The RP-CS is programmable. It enables to update and/or modify the Data Transport and/or the Data
Processing capabilities supported by user plane deep programmability functionality. For example, a new
protocol or a new set of interface specifications may be added for the purpose of enhancing functionalities
of the Data Transport and/or the Data Processing functional components. For another example, software
bugs may be fixed through the update.
– Resource Plane Functions

The Resource Plane Functions provide data forwarding and data routing functionalities. The control of the
data forwarding functionality is provided by 5G-CP. 5G-RP routing rules can be customized by the 5G-CP for
SDN applications needs. Data forwarding and data routing functionalities are extensible and programmable.
Examples of functional extension include enhancing the existing data transport capabilities and incorporating
new data transport capabilities. It also provides data processing functionalities to examine and manipulate
data. They enable to alter format and/or payload of data packets/frames and to adjust sending of data
packets/frames as specified by SDN applications. Data processing functionalities are also extensible and
programmable. Examples of functional extension include enhancing the existing data processing capabilities
and incorporating new data processing capabilities, e.g., new transcoding algorithms.
– Management Support and Softwarization

The Resource Plane Management Support and Softwarization (RP-MSS) provides resources description, i.e.
vendor, software version, and their status (e.g., CPU load, used RAM memory or storage). It may include a
management support functionality that performs some local management operations if delegated by 5G-MP.
This functionality can be used to support technology dependent resource discovery, for programmable, local
monitoring of the Resource Plane entity (in order to limit the amount of exchanged data or to focus on a
specific issue) or to implement autonomic management behaviour. It provides capabilities of softwarization
of physical resources into virtual resources. It also provides lifecycle management of all RP software-based
resources with the support of 5G-MP.
• 5G Management Plane

The 5G Management Plane (5G-MP) provides functionalities for managing the functionalities of other planes,
i.e., 5G-ASP, 5G-CP and 5G-RP. It interacts with these layers using standard interfaces. 5G-MP interoperates
with 3rd party management systems, for example for billing, customer care, statistics collection or dynamic
service provisioning, therefore a standard interface to the external operator management systems (e.g.,
MANO, 3G/4G NMS/BSS, etc.) also exists. It is also responsible for the orchestration (if needed) of dynamically
deployed management tasks (services) in a multi-plane management nature of 5G-MP and coordinated
(orchestrated) reconfiguration of resources of the 5G-RP.

5G-MP includes functionalities for supporting fault management, configuration management, accounting
management, performance management and security management (FCAPS) as described in [ITU-T M.3400].
Examples of such functionalities are equipment inventory, fault isolation, performance optimization, and
initial configuration of 5G-RP, 5G-CP and 5G-ASP. It is also responsible for the lifecycle management of 5G
software-based components of all 5G planes. By considering energy and environmental constraints, 5G-MP
provides energy efficient operations of virtual and physical resources used for the implementation of all
planes. The functionality can be realized by energy-aware algorithms supported by resource status
monitoring and analytics.

5G-MP functions include Resource Plane Management (RPM), Control Plane Management (CPM), Application
and Service Plane Management (ASPM), Multi-Plane Management Orchestration (MPMO), and External
Relationship Management (ERM).

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