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Achieving High Performance, Reliability and Security with Zero Touch 5G

Kathy Meier-Hellstern, PhDAssistant Vice PresidentAT&T Labs Research

IEEE Communications Quality and Reliability CommitteeEmerging Technology Reliability Roundtable (ETR-RT) Masala, FinlandAugust 26-27, 2019

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2

Speed through mmWave

• Travels short distances-> small cells

• Opportunistic placement required

Massive Connectivity

• High proliferation of low speed devices

Ultrareliable Low Latency Services

• Edge Cloud deployments that are close to users, coupled with high speed for some apps, e.g., AR/VR

• New RAN protocols

The 5G Landscape

3

Open Interfaces

Software

Commodity hardware

Open design ModularSoftware-centric

LTE/5G3G/LTE

Proprietary MonolithicHardware-centric

Software/Hardware

• Virtualized Core • Separation of control and user plane (CUPS)• More open interfaces • 5G: Disaggregation and virtualized RAN

The Evolution to 5G - Infrastructure

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4

5G disaggregated network

RIC

Tower>100K

Tower / CO>10K

Edge Cloud>100

Central Cloud10+

Far edge cloud

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5

Basic Principles – Virtualized Service Designs for High Availability

Define KPI

targets

Within-site redundancy,

failover in secs

Multi-site design &

failover in secs

Fault detection measures

Mature software

VFs need to be in at least 2 Geo-locations to achieve ≥ 99.99% availability(99.9% = 526 min/yr downtime, 99.99% = 53 min/yr, 99.999% = 5.3 min/yr)

MEP(power/HVAC)

Compute &Storage

Platform Software

VF SW0-100 min

100-200 min

50-100 min

0-50 min

Single Site Downtime Ranges ~150 – 450 min/yr

Software-based Services Maturity Curve

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6

5G Reliability and Security Vulnerabilities

High speed mmWave has less robust propagation

•Sensitivity to environmental conditions can result in unreliable air interface

Massive connectivity

• Insecure IoT devices are vulnerable to infection

•Smaller units of capacity are more vulnerable to overload

Highly Distributed/Disaggregated Network

•Smaller blast radius, but in aggregate many more small failures

•Hard to keep track of large numbers of network elements

Ultra Reliable Low Latency Services

•No room for error – even a “blip” can create a problem for the applications

• Standards specify physical layer that includes dual connectivity

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7

5G Reliability and Security Vulnerabilities and Opportunities

High speed mmWave has less robust propagation

Massive connectivity

Highly Distributed/Disaggregated Network

Ultra Reliable Low Latency Services

Integrated Access Backhaul (IAB)

RAN Intelligent Controller (RIC)

Automation using non-real time RIC/ONAP

Multi-Access Edge Cloud (MEC)

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• Creates opportunities for “SDN-like” routing at RAN level

• Reduces cost by enabling wireless backhaul to fiber-connected donor nodes

Integrated Access Backhaul (IAB) improves resiliency for mmWave

DonorNode

DonorNode

FAP

FAP

Fiber

Fiber

Enables alternate routes and “SDN-Like” routing

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9

• ORAN-led open source under Linux Foundation

• Per UE Control

• xApps, driven by analytics, can perform per UE actions such as block, throttle, change QoS…

• Edge controls prevent cascading overloads/outages

Near Real-Time RAN Intelligent Controller (RIC)

Near real-time analytics and UE control at the edge to stop congestion before it propagates

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10

• Analytics: fault & congestion detection, root cause

• Control: Non real-time RIC

• Actions:

‒ Automated self-healing

‒ SON-like capabilities – beam management, traffic offload, load balancing

• Configuration automation and analytics to detect anomalies

Non real-time RIC (ONAP)

Automation to reduce downtime using automated fault detection & self healing

• Low latency - located on customer premises

• Ability to isolate critical applications

• More secure for the Enterprise

• Opportunity for customer-specific high-availability cloud infrastructure that complement URLLC physical layer capabilities

11

Multi-Access Edge Cloud (MEC) delivers low latency and high reliability

Central Office

Businesses

Homes

Cell sitesAT&T

Mobility Core

Applications

Low latency plus elasticity and scale/resiliency at the edge

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12

• 5G enables speed, massive scale and ultra reliable low latency services

• These are offered using a virtualized, highly distributed architecture for both RAN and Core

• High availability SDN and NFV design principles can be applied to Core components

• New RAN capabilities include IAB, RIC and MEC further enhance performance, reliability and security

Conclusions