Integration of 5G Experimentation Infrastructures into a Multi-Site NFV Ecosystem

This protocol has been defined to incorporate remote sites and vertical infrastructure, which may be available even at other cities or countries into a common NFV ecosystem. The main advantage of this protocol is it's ability to facilitate the development of collaborative experimentation activities, allowing to a steady increase the portfolio of our legal resources on an NFV ecosystem. The protocol has already supported multiple experimentation activities in research projects involving 5TONIC and vertical infrastructures, over Spain, Europe, and Brazil.

And now it's ready to implement upcoming trials To generate a VPN credential, that will allow the new infrastructure, to establish a secure connection with the VPN server, after obtaining an appropriate IP address range, to integrate the site into the NFV ecosystem, execute the following command in the VPN server, and select the, add a new client option, from the prompted list. Introduce the name to be associated with that credential, in order to generate a file with the VPN credentials. Use the command as indicated, to encrypt the VPN credential, with the aim of providing this VPN credential file, to the technical staff of the external site, through a secure and reliable channel.

Set the encryption key, and set the name for the encrypted file, including the VPN credential. Set up the environment at the new site, so as to establish the connection with the NFV ecosystem, and to allow the remote NFV infrastructure, to be attached to the OSM stack of the central site. To activate the IP forwarding, in the VPN endpoint, to support network rooting capabilities, enter the command to modify, and load the updated system configuration.

Use the command to decrypt the VPN credential file, with the encryption key, and to boot the open VPN software, with the decrypted credential file. The VPN endpoint will authenticate to the VPN server, and will automatically receive the appropriate VPN configuration parameters, and network routes. To create an open stack project, to specify the set of computational resources of the external site that will be integrated into the NFV ecosystem, use administrator credentials, to log into the graphical user interface of the Open Stacks system, and click the plus create project button, to create a project, completing the displayed form, with the requested information, click on the plus Create user button, within the user's tab, and enter the appropriate information in the required fields of the displayed form.

Select the newly created project as the primary project, and select the admin role, to create a valid user, that will manage the project created in the previous step. To modify the security rules, to allow VNF communication permissions in the new site, access the Opens Stack graphical user interface, using the appropriate login information, and select project, network, security groups, manage rules, and plus Add rule. In the rule drop down menu, select the SSH, and all ICMP options.

To create a provider network in OpenStack, click admin, network networks, and plus create network. Enter the details of the new network, using the previously selected IP address range. To create a second provider network, click admin, network, networks, plus create network, and fill in the details of the new network, using the assigned address range.

After sharing the VIN related information, with the technical staff of the Central Site, attach the external NFV infrastructure, to the OSM software stack of the central site, using the command line interface provided by OSM. For validating the NFV multi-site platform, with the realistic vertical service illustrated in this figure, start by downloading the VNF images of the smart-farming network service, from the public repository. Then, upload them into the VIN of their corresponding site, access the OSM command line interface, and use the command to onboard the VNF descriptors, to the OSM stack, for each of the VNFs composing the network service.

Then, use the command to onboard the network service descriptor to the OSM stack. To deploy the smart-farming network service, run the command from the OSM command line interface, specifying the VIM that will be used, to host each VNF. Subsequently, use the command to check that the network service has been deployed.

Enter the command as indicated, into the OSM command line interface, to obtain the IP address information, of each VNF. Type the command to access the IOT server VNF, using the IP information obtained, and check as shown, that the interface is configured, to communicate with MQTT gateway VNF. Enter the command to access the MQTT gateway VNF, and run the command as indicated, to initialize the MQTT gateway VNF, which will receive data generated by the sensor, using the MQTT standard, and transmit this data, to the IOT server VNF, using the same standard.

Prepare a single board computer, by attaching a meteorological sensor to it, with the transceiver capacity to transmit sensor readings, toward PMQTT gateway VNF. Using the mobile application of a small unmanned aerial vehicle, take off the aerial vehicle that hosts the access point VNF, and position the vehicle, to provide wireless coverage to the single board computer with the sensor, attach the single board computer in charge of reading the data collected by the sensor, to the wifi/wireless access point, provided by the access point VNF. After a successful attachment, a wireless network path will be enabled, from the sensor, to the MQTT gateway VNF.

Use the command as indicated, to start transmission of the sensed data, then use the command and the URL, to access the web graphical user interface, provided by the IOT server VNF. Then click on the sensor's data collection button, and verify the real time update of the graphs included in the dashboard, as data are received. Wait for an appropriate period of time, to obtain representative results of the execution of the smart-farming service.

As illustrated in this picture, of the open VPN monitor tool, it can be observed how the new site is connected to the VPN service, enabling its data exchange communications, and the correct integration, of the new site within the NFV ecosystem. The network service allows the information distribution from a sensor located in a remote infrastructure, to the server located in the central site. Here, a successful deployment of the network service, from the OSM web graphical user interface, showing how the experiment can be properly instantiated, in the new remote infrastructure, from the nano stack located within the central site, can be observed.

In this figure, temperature, humidity, and pressure data collected from the sensor, demonstrate that the platform is able to deploy practical network services, after the inclusion of a new infrastructure, as well as to correctly enable communications between sites. The protocol has already been used to support experimentation with smart-farming, automotive, and public safety practicals, and paves the way for many others as well, such as the smart-cities, manufacturing or E-health.