The architecture lies on top of the 5G-EVE platform, which consists of pre-commercial equipment compliant with the latest release of 3GPP along possible evolutions – currently the equipment is based on evolutions of Rel. 15, but it will be upgraded to Rel. 16 soon as pre-commercial equipment based on this release becomes available from 5G-TOURS vendors. On top of the pre-commercial equipment, 5G-TOURS implements some modules that provide functionality required for the use cases addressed that is not available within the underlying platform. These modules employ standard interfaces of the equipment to configure and manage the underlying modules.
On top of the 5G baseline components, the 5G-TOURS architecture envisions three different functions. Enhanced MANO includes the algorithms responsible for orchestrating the different network functions and resources, based on the vertical requirements as well as elasticity considerations. Artificial intelligence modules take care of the overall management and configuration of the network, relying on AI/ML techniques, including the configuration of the MANO algorithms. Furthermore, broadcast modules implement control and user plane broadcasting functions, following the requirements of the use cases and leveraging the broadcast functions provided by the underlying network equipment.
The upper layer within the 5G-TOURS architecture is the so-called service layer, which provides the vertical customers and other network slice tenants with a friendly interface to request and operate network services. This service layer maps the user requests coming from the verticals to primitives in the interfaces with the underlying modules. To communicate with the underlying 5G platform, it leverages the API offered by 5G-EVE, which has been devised precisely as an interface with external entities.
