Open cooperative 5G experimentation platforms for the industrial sector Network Applications

The success of 5G technologies depends closely on their ability to attract vertical stakeholders, seeking the move of their services from cloud to the edge to meet unique KPIs. 5G-INDUCE project is based on the belief that such attractiveness requires vertical stakeholders and Network Application (nApp) developers to be able to smoothly deploy and manage applications in distributed 5G network environments, in a secure fashion and with strict KPI requirements.5G-INDUCE relies on the deployment of an open ETSI NFV compatible 5G orchestration platform for the deployment of advanced 5G nApps.

The platform’s unique features provide the capability to the nApp developers to define and modify the application requirements while the underlay intelligent OSS can expose the network capabilities to the end users on the application level without revealing any infrastructure related information.

This process enables an application-oriented network management and optimization approach that is in line with the operator’s role as manager of its own facilities, while it offers the operational environment to any developers and service providers through which tailored made applications can be designed and deployed, for the benefit of vertical industries and without any indirect dependency through a cloud provider.The project focuses on the Industry 4.0 vertical sector, as one of the fastest growing and most impactful sectors in European economy with high potentials for service development SMEs and with the capability to tackle all diverse cases of service requirements.

The platform is integrated over 3 5G Experimentation Facilities in Spain, Greece, and Italy, and extended with links towards specific Industries, for the showcasing of nApps in real 5G environment.

The consortium includes all the required stakeholders (MNOs, Industries, System integrators and SMEs) from the benefited business sectors evaluated in the project, while significant part of the work (>50%) is conducted by innovative SMEs.