The UK Programmable Fixed and Mobile Internet Infrastructure: Overview, Capabilities and Use Cases Deployment

Hamada Alshaer,Charalampos Rotsos,Konstantinos Antonakoglou,Harald Haas,Dimitra Simeonidou,Hanaa Abumarshoud,David Hutchison,Steven Simpson,Navdeep Uniyal,Reza Nejabati,Dritan Kaleshi,Hamid Falaki,Paul Mccherry,Konstantinos Katsaros,Toktam Mahmoodi

doi:10.1109/access.2020.3020894

Abstract

Leading state-of-the-art research facilities at the Universities of Edinburgh (UoE), Bristol (UoB), Lancaster (UoLan), King’s College London (KCL) and Digital Catapult (DCAT) are interconnected through a dedicated JISC/JANET network infrastructure. Using Software Defined Networking (SDN) and Network Function Virtualisation (NFV) technologies, these distributed test-beds are integrated using a multi-domain NFV Orchestrator. This paper introduces a novel specialist distributed test-bed developed for facilitating the increasingly large and complex experimentation of future Internet system architectures, technologies, services and applications between the geographically dispersed laboratories across the UK. The aim is to enable students, researchers and enterprises to interconnect with and carry out remote experiments using these test-beds. Each one contributes a range of key capabilities for Internet research including optical networks, optical wireless and radio frequency communications, Internet of Things (IoT), SDN, NFV, as well as cloud computing technologies and services.

Highlights

The emergence of fifth-generation (5G) communication systems, cloud services and Internet of Things (IoT) has led to an unprecedented increase in connection capacity requirements and an exponential growth of devices that require reliable dynamic Internet connectivity
A media server network function has been converted to a virtualized network function (VNF) which is deployed as a network service that provides multimedia traffic to the end-users associated with light fidelity (LiFi) APs at the Universities of Edinburgh (UoE) and University of Bristol (UoB), as shown in Fig. 13 b
Concise details have been provided on the deployment of Software Defined Networking (SDN), Network Function Virtualisation (NFV) orchestration and capabilities within each partner’s test-bed and its interactions with the others through the 5GUKex [35]. This SDN exchange enables researchers to remotely request access to specific test-beds and carry out complex experiments involving any combination of their desired resources across any combination of the disparate test-beds

Summary

Introduction

The emergence of fifth-generation (5G) communication systems, cloud services and Internet of Things (IoT) has led to an unprecedented increase in connection capacity requirements and an exponential growth of devices that require reliable dynamic Internet connectivity. The local test-bed comprises (i) a virtualized and cloud system distributed in three physical location areas within the University’s Strand campus, (ii) the 5G Tactile Internet Lab, where researchers have access to connected devices and test potential use cases and applications, (iii) the data centre, where the main physical servers and the virtual baseband units of 5G base stations are located, (iv) the roof, where the RGE (relative gain enhancement) antennas are located, covering areas of Sommerset House and KCL’s Strand campus courtyard.

Results

Conclusion