NEC concludes wireless transport SDN proof of concept

NEC Corporation announced the completion of the 5th multi-vendor Wireless Transport SDN Proof of Concept (PoC) with the Open Networking Foundation's (ONF) Open Transport Working Group.

The PoC took place in November 2018, hosted by Telefonica Germany in Munich, Germany for a period of five days.

A total of 20 companies, including NEC, took part in the PoC. Three operators (Telefonica Germany as a host, AT-T and Deutsch Telecom) supported this 5th PoC. Participants included a range of optical hardware vendors and application software developers.

The aim of this 5th PoC was to further advance the achievements from the prior 4 PoCs and to move a step closer to commercially deployable SDN controllers integrated into an Open Network Automation Platform (ONAP).

This simplifies the operations, management and control of network elements and services across multiple domains encompassing both wireless and optical transport networks and facilitating the integration of distinct multi-vendor solutions under a common framework.

The latest version of the OpenDaylight (ODL) SDN controller, Oxygen, was used for the PoC. ONAP Release 3 was used to provide a common network abstraction model for end to end service creation, control and management.

The 5th PoC demonstrated SDN capabilities for integrating a variety of applications developed by multiple software providers based on microwave and optical models, the Ethernet model and new use cases applying commissioning and configuration guidelines from the Device Management Interface Profile.

For the 5th POC, NEC provided its latest iPASOLINK split mount VR4 microwave communications system, part of the NEC Next Generation Converged Radio solution for LTE - beyond, equipped with a NETCONF interface with the use of an external mediator supporting the ONF Microwave data Model TR 532.

The system successfully achieved connectivity to the ONAP platform and proved its compatibility with the OSS/Applications attached on top of the ONAP orchestrator.

NEC deputy general manager Hideyuki Muto says, "The importance of intelligence and automation is growing. Operation and management of 5G networks efficiently and cost-effectively are very complicated and requires automation and closed-loop control with timely data refinement and quick action.

"The SDN open source-based platform helps speed up project delivery and reduces complexity through abstraction and virtualization of controllers and orchestrator interfaces.

"By participating in this 5th PoC with our advanced iPASOLINK VR radio platform, NEC has yet again confirmed its commitment to further advance developments of SDN features in support of innovative mobile backhaul and wireless transport solutions for high utilization and efficient operation of 5G networks and services.