| guide | With the acceleration of 5G construction, 5G and cloud-network integration will co-exist and promote each other, and promote the continuous development and evolution of bearer network technology. Cloud-network integration will surely become an inevitable trend for the high-quality development of the industry. Currently, cloud-network integration is facing new demands and challenges, and 5G bearer network technology is also facing new development trends in terms of deterministic assurance, customized services, and intelligent management, control, and O&M. Only by strengthening collaborative research among all parties in the industry can we jointly promote the research and development and pilot verification of new technologies for 5G bearer networks, and help promote the application and promotion of 5G+ vertical industries. |
Cloud-network integration drives the development of 5G bearer network technology
The latest data shows that my country has built a total of 792,000 5G base stations, achieving 5G network coverage in all prefecture-level cities and building the world's largest 5G network. The 5G network not only provides consumers with high-speed mobile Internet access and high-definition video services, but also lays a network foundation for the promotion of 5G+ vertical industry applications. At present, my country's operators are actively implementing the "new infrastructure" strategy and promoting digital transformation, in-depth research on the development path of cloud-network integration and new architectures and new technology visions such as 6G.
China Telecom released the "Technical White Paper on Cloud-Network Convergence 2030" in November 2020, which systematically introduced the technical architecture, three-stage development path and goals of cloud-network convergence, and proposed recent key measures and six technological innovation directions; China China Mobile released three 6G technical reports in November 2020, putting forward 6G vision requirements, "2030+ network architecture" and key technology prospects, etc., hoping to jointly create a beautiful world of "digital twins and ubiquitous intelligence". In March 2021, China Unicom released the "CUBE-Net 3.0 Network Innovation System White Paper", hoping to integrate cloud-network integration with computing and network, open optical network and cloud-optical integration, 5G network and deterministic services, cloud-network brain and intelligence. Operations, ubiquitous elastic ultra-broadband access and other fields, strengthen scientific and technological innovation and R&D cooperation with all parties in the industry.
At present, my country's 5G core network mainly adopts a distributed cloud-based data center architecture, hoping to promote the integration of 5G and cloud networks into the era of symbiosis and mutual promotion, thereby giving birth to a variety of 5G application innovations, and promoting 5G and its enhanced technologies in the industrial Internet, The application and promotion of various industries such as smart grid, smart transportation, smart medical care, and smart education. For the bearer network, it should also continuously adapt to cloud-network integration, artificial intelligence, computing power network, and future 6G development needs. In the next step, in the field of bearer network, we should comprehensively study the key technologies and development trends in terms of determinism, intelligence, customization, flexible expansion, IP+optical synergy, and open capabilities, and put forward suggestions suitable for the development of industrial applications in my country to effectively support my country's "new infrastructure" development and digital transformation.
Three major trends in the development of 5G bearer network technology
01. Realize the deterministic bearer of business classification guarantee
Since there are multiple application scenarios in the 5G+ vertical industry, which are usually integrated applications of eMBB, uRLLC, and mMTC, and the requirements for SLAs are also quite different, a deterministic network that provides bounded performance guarantees has become a key enabling technology. As far as the current situation is concerned, 3GPP R17 and R18 standards will focus on enhancing the customized service capabilities of RAN and SA supporting uRLLC and network slicing; multiple international standardization organizations such as ITU-T, IEEE802.1 and IETF are developing L1-L3 my country's CCSA, the 5G Bearer Working Group under the 5G Promotion Group, Future Network and other industry alliances are also actively carrying out research on relevant technical standards and industrial applications. For example, 5GDNA has released the 5G deterministic A series of white papers on network requirements, technologies, and practices in the power industry.
In addition, the deterministic bearer network supporting cloud-network integration is composed of technical protocols and QoS mechanisms at different levels. It is necessary to objectively analyze the FlexE interface based on time slot multiplexing and the MTN channel technology based on time slot crossing at the L1 layer, and the Ethernet-based The advantages, disadvantages and application scenarios of the time-delay-sensitive network (TSN) series technology of network bridging and the L3 layer-based IP-based deterministic network (DetNet) technology, combined with the differentiated requirements of various services, research on security, isolation, reliability, bandwidth , delay, jitter, and time-frequency synchronization are key technologies that provide bounded hierarchical guarantees respectively. For application scenarios such as carrier wide area network and industry private network, an optimized deterministic bearer network technology architecture and application solutions are constructed to realize deterministic bearer of bounded and hierarchical guarantees for typical services such as industrial control, AR/VR, and machine vision.
02. Customized services adapted to the collaborative development of cloud + AI + computing power network
Driven by the integration and development of emerging technologies such as 5G and cloud computing, edge computing, artificial intelligence, and computing power networks, my country's ICT industry is evolving towards an innovative ecological model of "connection + computing power + application + service". Under the trend of widespread application of AI, cloud-network integration has shown an exponential growth in computing power requirements, which also poses new challenges to the computing power supply of cloud computing nodes.
The computing power network is a technical system that transmits resource information such as computing power in real time, and realizes the information association and high-frequency trading of multi-party heterogeneous computing, storage, network and other resources, so as to solve the computing power distribution and resource allocation among different types of cloud computing nodes. Share puzzles. In the future, cloud-network integration will develop in the direction of "computing-network integration". The bearer network should also provide ubiquitous network flexible connection capabilities, provide customized service capabilities for computing power networks and their applications, and realize intelligent and high-quality perception experience.
SRv6 is an application extension of segment routing (SR) technology based on IPv6. Compared with SR-MPLS, it has higher flexibility and scalability, stronger application combination ability and better customized programming ability. At present, Chinese operators and equipment manufacturers have realized the integrated application of Overlay and Underlay based on SRv6+EVPN, and are actively promoting the development of SRv6 technical standards and pilot applications on live networks. In order to realize the future construction of a customized service network that is closely integrated with business applications, the SRv6 technical standard needs to be continuously improved.
It is reported that the IETF has released two standards of SRv6 encapsulation (RFC8754) and programming (RFC8986). Basic protocols such as SR-Policy are in the drafting stage of the working group. Network slicing, flow detection and BIERv6 multicast for 5G and cloud Technology, etc. are also in the requirements and framework research stage. Therefore, the packet header compression G-SRv6 technology that improves transmission efficiency is expected to form a working group draft this year. In addition, APN6, which solves the application perception of cross-domain services, is still in the application exploration stage, and SRV6 applications still need to be gradually developed in combination with application scenarios and the maturity of the industry chain.
03. Construct the intelligent management, control, operation and maintenance capabilities of the industry virtual private network
A few days ago, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology released the 5G application action plan. The plan shows that it will focus on promoting virtual private networks in the industry to realize intelligent collaborative orchestration and full life cycle management of terminal, wireless, and end-to-end network slicing to the core network to meet High-efficiency operation and maintenance and rapid business provisioning requirements.
Looking at the development trend of cloud-network integration, at the technical level, it is necessary to open up the 5G network slice management and control system and the cloud data center management and control system to build a "cloud-network brain" to realize the unified management and integrated operation of cloud-network resources, so that it can Possess intelligent, agile and precise management and control operation capabilities. In addition, the management and control system of the bearer network should also integrate bearer sub-slice management and control functions, support the planning of bearer sub-slice templates based on the decomposition of different slice business scenarios and SLA indicators, and realize the orchestration, configuration, monitoring and analysis of slice resources isolated from software and hardware Full lifecycle management and control, and big data analysis of multi-dimensional performance and fault alarms through AI/ML to achieve intelligent management, control, operation and maintenance.
Cooperate to promote 5G transport technology standards and industry coordinated development
To sum up, at present, my country's bearer network technology still needs to rely on continuous development to meet the capacity requirements of cloud-network integration for deterministic bearer, customized service, and intelligent management and control operation and maintenance. In the future, my country's operators should strengthen in-depth cooperation with various industry customers, scientific research institutes, equipment manufacturers, chip/device manufacturers and other industry chain parties, and at the same time closely combine technical standard innovation with healthy development of the industry, and jointly promote cloud-oriented network development. The development of integrated 5G bearer network technology strongly supports the national "new infrastructure" development strategy and the digital transformation of the industry. For more Linux information, please check: https://www.linuxprobe.com