When SDN meets NFV virtualization 5G core network

Jia Wenkang, Moderator of Taiwan Institute of Intellectual Property & 5G vEPC Program

From the first generation of mobile communications (1G) to the fourth generation of mobile communications (4G), in terms of wireless access network (RAN) technology, each generation is significantly different from FDMA, TDMA, CDMA, and OFDMA. It is regarded as a revolutionary technology; however, in the core network technology, the revolutionary nature is not so significant. About a major change from circuit switching to packet switching took place only in the 3G generation.

Considering that global operators have invested huge funds in previous core network technologies, drastic changes will affect service continuity and benefits, so the core network technology revolution in the 3G phase has also intimately allowed the two exchange modes to coexist and co-exist. The entire generation, that is, operators can freely choose to use circuit or encapsulation and switching technology until the 4G generation is formally integrated into the all-IP packet switching core network system.

SDN/NFV key to 5G network revolution

The significance of this revolutionary process is that the core network does not need to use expensive and complicated dedicated hardware and software devices. It can be composed of general general-purpose servers (usually x86 servers), IP routers, and Ethernet switches, making the core network deployed. Further reducing costs also reduces the reliance or bundling of a single solution provider. Therefore, it is recognized by the industry that each generation of the wireless access network is almost a revolution, and the core network technology is recognized as the continuous evolution.

Faced with the demand for wireless mobile communication in the information networking society between human and even all things after 2020, the 5th generation of mobile communications (5G) is regarded by the industry as a revolutionary technology with great expectations and innovations in wireless access technology. Of course, but on the core network, will there be a revolutionary improvement? The 5G mobile communication system will be a full-service, multi-technology converged network. Through the evolution and innovation of ICT technology, it will meet the needs of the rapid development of various services with a wide range of data and connectivity in the future, and ultimately satisfy the client-centric wireless. One of the key issues in networking requirements is the development of software-defined networking (SDN) and Network-Function Virtualization (NFV) technologies.

Traditional 4G Telecom Core Network Design and Challenges

Before we get to the point, let's review how the traditional telecom core network works. And what disadvantages does it need to improve?

First, please refer to Figure 1. This is an all-IP traditional 4G telecommunications core network operating architecture and illustration. It is a closed network system that tends to have a single device responsible for a single dedicated function. The network topology is similar to the design of large-scale data center networks. The upper layer is the core router (Core Router) layer, the middle is the edge or access switch (Edge/Access Switch) layer, the lower layer is the Server Farm or Storage Network, and all the EPC network components (Network (Enteritis) For example, MME and user accounts that manage user registration and mobility are running on these servers.

To avoid the damage of a single node or link to the entire network, FAT Tree is used as the core topology. This is an example of a 2-level fat tree. There are four paths between any network nodes. The truly operational network design may be extended to a three- or four-tier architecture with more redundant backup paths to achieve 99.999% high availability (HA) reliability requirements. The primary design goal of this all-encapsulated (or all-IP) network architecture is to improve the performance of data transmission rate and network latency, and to support high-speed, high-volume wireless users by extending optical cables or leased lines to wireless access networks. Take service.

First of all, the cost of infrastructure and special line costs in exclusive telecommunications rooms was high, and at least several problems were found. First, considering the customer's service level, it is necessary to look into the medium-to-long-term business demand in the future and deploy it in one place. Otherwise, any minor design changes in the future will cause service suspension, thereby reducing revenue and reducing customer satisfaction. In other words, it is the lack of deployment flexibility, and it is difficult to schedule the network and computing resources even if it cannot be scheduled. Taking MME or S-GW as an example, it must accept the frequent registration of thousands of users and the transfer of high-strength data. A server may not be able to afford it, so it is bound to deploy more than one, and in front of them must also introduce additional servers. The Server Load Balancer host is used to evenly distribute user traffic.

Another extreme example is the PCRF that manages QoS. Its inherent job may be "clear". Preparing a server for it is wasteful. In practice, there will inevitably be equipment damage or upgrade requirements; or the introduction of emerging application services, these emerging services often need to integrate with existing services in the network, the more investment in hardware and software equipment, high complexity and time-consuming integration test Too long requires a lot of technical manpower to support the existing network service levels, and it is difficult to launch these new services in real time. However, the life cycle of dedicated hardware and software equipment that supports these new services is getting shorter and shorter. This is a traditional 4G telecom core. The network is a big challenge.

What's more, there is a lack of efficiency. Each network component (server) has various complicated telecommunication signaling interfaces that need to interact with each other frequently. In the aforementioned architecture, the problem of Pinball Routing is introduced. If two The components to be communicated are all the same as one edge switch. However, in practice, they may belong to different edge switches, and they must be forwarded by the core router. The Hop-count of the entire data path increases.

As mentioned earlier, the current telecommunications network operators face a gradual increase in the gap between costs and revenues, and operators face enormous capital investment. The one-time capital expenditure cost (CAPEX) or the daily OPEX of the traditional 4G telecom core network also has room for reduction. Furthermore, all control and service flows need to be centralized and centralized in the central office. Its performance and service quality are also not perfect. Is there a solution that can respond to these challenges? Cloud virtualization technology with software-defined networking technology may be an option.

SDN/NFV Control and Data Layer Optimization Architecture

From the perspective of the entire industry development trend, the 3GPP standard development process has entered the real 4G LTE-A (Release 13/14) generation, and the growing maturity and success of cloud virtualization technology in the IT industry has driven the mobile network to adopt new implementations. The new business model and new business models, as well as the rapid development of many new IT technologies in the past decade, have inspired the rethinking of mobile network architecture and business deployment.

The concept of software-defined network (SDN) is to allow software to control the network and fully open network capabilities. It is a three-fold feature that has control splitting and user data separation (CU Split), network function centralized control, and open application program interface API. New network architecture and network technology. Through the introduction of the SDN concept, it is possible to turn the vertically integrated traditional telecommunications network architecture into a layered architecture that is flexible, open, highly integrated, service-oriented and ensures service levels. After the introduction of SDN, the new challenge is how to reconfigure the network functions, how to design new interface protocols, and then optimize the architecture based on SDN and optimize the end-to-end signaling flow. On the other hand, a large number of complex control mechanisms are concentrated on the SDN controller, which also reduces the costs of SDN exchanges such as procurement, management and replacement, and solves the problem of binding by a single Netcom equipment manufacturer.

Similar to the concept of the SDN part, one of the concepts of Network Function Virtualization (NFV) is also the issue of resolving certain software and hardware functional components that are bound by market-dominated vendors; it uses the IT approach of cloud virtualization to transform 4G/5G. The core network uses the General Purpose Platform (GPP) to build a telecommunications infrastructure. The GPP equipment market is much larger than dedicated telecommunications equipment, and the unit cost/performance ratio is much lower than that of telecommunications equipment, and the cost is reduced and the update cycle is marginal. Several times more than telecommunication equipment, this can introduce new IT technology and new IT equipment faster and at a lower cost, and maintain hardware performance better than the competition.

Through NFV, the functions of related network devices that have a dedicated 4G core network are virtualized in a software-based manner. Through Cloud Computing related technologies, hardware resources are virtualized into multiple VMs (Virtual Machines), and cloud computing is utilized. The rapid deployment capability enables the capacity configuration adjustment cycle of various EPC software network components (Network Entity) to be shortened from weeks to minutes, significantly improving the agility of EPC network component deployment and updating, and realizing the On Demand dynamics of equipment capacity. Flexible expansion ensures the maintainability of the system. The load balancing mechanism improves service levels of the system. Each VM can be migrated and regenerated, and can be used for hot backup between local and remote sites to further ensure high reliability of the network.

EPC's related software network components hardware infrastructure resources and environment can be purchased by operators from independent software system development companies or locally customized. Emerging network services can be deployed more quickly, flexibly and flexibly, and service deployment time can be significantly reduced. , And significantly reduce the cost of server hardware infrastructure construction and transportation. As a result, the focus of 4G/5G network operators and equipment vendors can be transferred to service innovation, and further create higher value-added profitability service revenue for telecom operators.

Because the core concepts of both NFV and SDN technologies have similarities, the two have a high degree of complementarity and integration. Therefore, in the current work of virtualizing 4G core networks, NFV and SDN will be on par with each other, and the future development of the two may be possible. The collaborative operating model is also worth exploring. The SDN is responsible for the network infrastructure and Layer 3 network traffic forwarding processing below the Layer-4. The NFV is responsible for the flexible and flexible resource scheduling of the upper layer application service facilities above the Layer-4 network. The two complement each other, creating a highly efficient and optimized operator in the future. Integrated service platform.

Once SDN/NFV rises, it will inevitably impact the existing telecommunication network ecosystem. At present, the most important function of the 4G/5G core network is IMS in addition to the EPC. Its virtualization solutions are called vEPC and vIMS respectively. Because the IMS functions are relatively simple, they are often treated as part of the vEPC. vEPC has become a hot topic in the network communications industry in recent years. There are a number of global large-scale operators optimistic about its development potential. They have jointly established NFV standards and promote the organization. Their main goals are to provide 4G/5G core network flexibility and efficient use of resources. .

vEPC is poised to promote the effective use of 4G/5G core network

vEPC is a hot topic in the network communications industry in recent years. There are a number of global large-scale operators who are optimistic about their development potential and have jointly established NFV standards and promoted the organization. At present, the most important organization is promoted by a specialized ISG (Industry Specification Group) under the jurisdiction of ETSI (European Telecommunication Standards Institute). Its main goal is to provide 4G/5G core network flexibility and efficient use of resources.

ETSI ISG NFV was initiated in late 2012 by thirteen global index operators, including AT&T, BT, CenturyLink, China Mobile, Colt, DT, KDDI, NTT, Orange, Telecom Italia, Telefonica, Telstra and Verizon. The members of the NFV ISG have grown to participate in more than hundreds of manufacturers and individual members, including the world's major telecom service providers, as well as representatives from the telecommunications industry and IT vendors. The main function of the NFV ISG is to develop requirements and architectural specifications to support these virtual function hardware and software infrastructures, and to develop guidelines for network functions. The working group's work will integrate existing virtualization technologies and standards as appropriate, and will work in concert with the work being carried out by other standards committees, and will deepen the future direction of NFV-related technologies, with a view to establishing a full NFV-based telecommunications operator. Pilot demonstration network is the mainstay.

The NFV-MANO (NFV Management and Orchestration) reference architecture proposed by ETSI (Figure 2) is an open architecture that is hierarchically modular and uses industry-standard protocols for communication and interfaces between layers to ensure interoperability between modules. The open and modular nature of this platform has led to interoperability and greater customer selectivity, allowing customers to choose the right solution for a particular vEPC requirement.

NFV-MANO hierarchically manages three core systems:

1. Infrastructure (NFV Infrastructure, NFVI):

Converting resources such as physical computing/storage/networking into a pool of infrastructure resources through virtualization to provide a virtualization platform where upper-tier applications run. The corresponding management module in the NFV-MANO reference model is the Virtualized Infrastructure Manager (VIM). The functions and roles are currently the best cloud management functions that OpenStack can play. However, OpenStack is still not mature enough to work with NFV and requires a lot of function expansion. To support vEPC.

2. Virtual Network Functions (VNF):

For the EPC core network, only each original materialized network component is mapped as a virtual network component, which is hosted by NFVI and provides the required virtualized computing resources. The interface between VNFs still uses the signaling defined by the traditional network. The interface (3GPP), most of the existing EPC network components can run directly on the VM without modification. The corresponding management module in the NFV-MANO reference model is the VNF Manager (VNFM), which is responsible for the opening and closing of each VM, and can add (Add) or remove (Drop) the corresponding computing resources when resources are insufficient or surplus.

3. Operational Support Management (OSS):

Provides management collaboration capabilities for current OSS/BSS systems, and requires necessary modifications and adjustments for virtualization and business/service models to meet more diversified 5G service requirements, such as Network Slicing Value-added service chain. The corresponding management module in the NFV-MANO reference model is the NFV Orchestrator (NFVO), which is responsible for high-level operational management processes, such as the association and mapping of service networks and NFVI resources, scheduling, association, and mapping of emerging service deployments, etc. .

In the lower left part of FIG. 2 , the original SGW/PGW user plane functions (ie, SGW-u and PGW-u) ​​are deployed on the SDN Switch in the form of an SDN OpenFlow rule set (RuleSet). The original EPC interfaces are S5 and S8. Such as fundamentally disappeared, more than 80% of user data traffic can be directly transferred by the SDN Switch, improve packet transfer efficiency below Layer-3, reduce latency and improve QoS; even further partial Layer-4 packet pre-processing actions, such as Key GTPv2 Tunneling/Detunneling in EPC, Control-Plane Signaling Indicating & Classification, and even the Advanced Replacement of Packet Headings such as Carrier Grade Network Address Translation (CG-NAT) )Wait. Less than 20% of the remaining control signaling traffic is normally encapsulated in the form of the SCTP protocol in the EPC. The rules in the SDN Switch can be easily identified in the IP header and forwarded to the default corresponding EPC network component for processing. In this way, the SDN architecture significantly reduces the phenomenon of ping-pang winding, realizes local removal of network traffic, and completes the EPC L2~L4 bonus function in transit along the shortest path along the road to achieve service requirements such as low latency, QoS, and SLA.

In the upper left of Figure 2, with NFV, most of the EPC network components have been virtualized, and the original MME/HSS functions are run on the cloud virtualization platform in the form of VMs. This architecture no longer has physical MME/HSS and other EPC networks. Components exist. Existing EPC interfaces such as S6a, S11, etc., can be directly operated between virtual network adapters in the cloud virtualization platform. The network virtualization function can be operated as usual. If operators want to pursue higher performance, they may also consider using this type of EPC interface. The interface is rewritten in the VMCI (Virtual Machine Communication Interface) type, which is expected to further optimize the signaling exchange performance.

vEPC operational efficiency and service quality

Many proposed 5G emerging application services currently require extremely high mobile data transmission rates, and are very sensitive to QoS performance such as transmission delay or delay jitter. For UEs that pass through the RAN and reach the application field (Application Field, AF) End-to-end delays are extremely demanding. For this reason, the future 5G mobile communication system should have the highest possible service quality, especially the transmission rate and the characteristics of low delay, so as to apply various new 4G/5G mobile communication application scenarios in the future.

In the cloud on the EPC core network, when some people mentioned this concept three years ago, they would probably be jokingly talked about by the industry. The reason lies in the benefits of the telecommunication industry, and it is highly dependent on high-strength, highly reliable dedicated telecommunications network infrastructure. , and cloud associated with the Internet these terms give people a less reliable stereotype. Today, when more than half of the telecommunications industry's revenue comes from Internet access, the cloud on the EPC core network is not necessarily a joke. To provide users with a smoother access experience, traditionally, the client's mobile phone (UE) passes through the base station ( The eNB) accesses the EPC of the backend room through Backhaul. After the signaling passes through the MME and the data passes through the S-GW/P-GW and other facilities, it is finally connected back to the Internet via the SGi interface.

This long journey is actually quite inefficient. Therefore, there is an intriguing move in the industry. Simply pulling the SGi interface directly behind the eNB can directly access the Internet, saving a lot of detours. This concept has been proposed in the 3GPP specification with the operation of a small cell (Smell-cell/Femto-cell): Local IP Access (LIPA) and Selected IP Traffic Offload (SIPTO) ) Technology is that, conceptually, it seems that there is a simplified core network function that has been pushed forward to deploy with the base station, which is called EPC Lite.

It is currently known that 5G networks have a demand for high user density access, and this type of demand is often associated with the concept of cloud-based radio access networks (C-RAN). Using an x86 server as a Baseband Unit (BBU), it can control wireless radio heads (RRHs) with greatly simplified functions, which is very suitable for deployment requirements of small cells. This general-purpose server serves as the BBU role. It also shoulders the responsibility of running the function of the light nuclear network, making the deployment and transportation costs of high-density small base stations further lower, and the quality of users' experience is even higher.

For the back-end core network, choosing to lease an Internet data center or cloud service called the cloud data center to operate, the feasibility becomes relatively improved because of the wireless access network (base station side) and the nuclear network. Signaling interactions and data traffic have become less heavy loading. At most when users register to log in or move, there is a small amount of signaling handshake, so the indirect continuation of the dedicated line or dark fiber (Dark Fiber) It is not as important as it used to be, and it is understandable to change the Internet access link with “unreliable” impressions.

On the other hand, once the user moves beyond the coverage of the original base station, complex handover procedures as described above must be performed, provided that these complicated procedures no longer need to go back to the EPC but can be quickly performed between the two base stations. After the communication is completed, the necessary information is required to be reported back to the EPC after the success of the handover, and the speed of changing hands can be accelerated to some extent to improve the performance of the 5G network in high-speed mobility. The left half of Figure 3 illustrates the possible contribution of vEPC to operational efficiency and service quality.

vEPC Reliability and High Availability

At present, many of the 5G new-model service models in the 3GPP standards organization discussion require high-density and large-scale communication and other issues to be dealt with, all of which show that the 5G core network needs to withstand the same system capacity and stability. language. In this regard, the advantages of cloud virtualization will also be taken advantage of. It will provide redundancy protection at the NFVI level and will no longer rely on entity modules; the abstract attributes of the cloud virtualization resources will not cause VNFs running on it to be due to a physical server or A network connection error has caused a service interruption.

For example, EPC key components such as the MME's virtual machine (VM) can run multiple copies with N+1 redundancy between each other using the cloud's Hot Standby technology. Once the primary VM fails, the backup VM is Within a fraction of a second it is possible to take over and the user is completely unaware that the EPC service has been briefly interrupted. If you worry about multiple VMs running in a single data center or there is a worry that “the eggs are in the same basket”, the service cost of the data center will be low anyway, and the industry can lease an alternate data center to run the backup virtual core network function once The virtual data center (VDC) is in error, and the standby VDC can also complete the backup backup function in a few seconds, which does not have much impact on user service continuity. In the right part of Figure 3, these hot spares capabilities are the basic skills of cloud virtualization technology, both locally and remotely, and require very large construction cost investment to achieve design goals.

In particular, it is worth mentioning that in this type of technology, in the 3GPP proposal, the RAN and the EPC are best matched with advanced IP delivery technologies such as multicast and anycast to further optimize, but currently IPv4 is The basic Internet backbone is still unable to effectively provide such delivery services. The solution has already been pushed for a while. It is the familiar IPv6 technology. The current Internet IPv6 deployment schedule still lags behind. This is an Internet operator. To be accelerated, we also hope that the wave of vEPC may play a role in increasing the popularity of IPv6.

vEPC connectivity, serviceability and deployment flexibility

In order to support emerging service models and a large number of increased performance requirements, 5G research proposes some necessary key network features, such as the deployment of a large number of small-cells, and expects to increase its system user capacity and unit user density, and support large The data collection and transfer of billions of sensing nodes scale to meet the large data and huge demands of the MTC (Machine Type Communication). These demands will inevitably increase the burden on the system scale and scalability of EPC networks. Because these factors involve large-scale infrastructure construction costs, it is not a single mobile communication carrier that can independently bear the burden. Therefore, they jointly create and share network resources. For example, the separation of network services or the concept of co-construction of a computer room and a base station is recognized as a more feasible method.

In the future 5G mobile network, MTC is expected to become an important application. In order to penetrate more MTC services in the industry, the 5G mobile communication system should have more flexibility and adaptability to adapt to the huge amount of terminal connection (Massive Connection) and diversified user needs. To this end, 5G MTC services must group user traffic according to a certain policy (as if it were an enterprise or application service, have the same QoS or SLA level, have a heavier mutual communication requirement, and have similar traffic behavior in a geographically adjacent area). Features, etc., belong to the same virtual area network (VLAN).

Through PCRF components in the EPC as Policy Decision Points (PDPs), the aforementioned QoS policies are formed, and the Ruleset converted by the OpenStack to the SDN via the SDN controller is deployed to each SDN switch as a policy enforcement point. (Policy Enforcement Points, PEP) to give different VLANs the required QoS levels. The vEPC can run separate VM Instances for each operator. In addition to protecting the privacy of the operators, they can also be separated according to different service levels. The flow of each party; In addition, different service models (such as MTC/UDN, etc.) can also be diverted according to the same concept to meet the traditional mobile communications network, and they do not have the capability to provide such EPC infrastructure services. Demand.

With this type of network traffic scheduling capabilities, operators can flexibly increase and control virtual devices and value-added services according to business needs. It is not necessary to add new or change services to change the basics of their network configuration. Setting up, the development cycle of emerging application services will be significantly shortened.

The lower half of FIG. 4 illustrates the operation of the Value-Added Service Chain. User UE1 provides a CG-NAT service via VLAN 1, and the traffic of UE1 is directed to the SDN switch providing the service. Perform the NAT conversion action with the pre-deployed CG-NAT RuleSet. The user UE2 is unfortunately a suspect in a criminal case that is being prosecuted. The system must provide DPI (deep packet inspection) or LEA (lawful interception) services to the UE2 via VLAN2 without the customer’s knowledge. The traffic is directed to the SDN switch that provides the service, and the packet is copied to the DPI/LEA VM server with the pre-deployed Port Mirror RuleSet to complete the deep packet inspection or lawful interception record procedure, while the normal user data transmission path is not affected. User UE3 subscribes to a firewall (FW) value-added service. Via VLAN3, its traffic is forwarded to the VM of the FW. After the firewall packet filtering is completed, it is forwarded back to the correct path of the data flow.

vEPC Highly Scalable and Continuously Maintainable

The infrastructure of the telecommunications industry is highly scalable, and the data capacity to be provided is increasing and complex, and the computing capacity and the number of connected devices that require more data are also increasing, and the service level required by users is also increasing. It has become more and more strict.

Cloud virtualization is a theoretically infinite resource concept for applications running on top of the hierarchy. vEPC can increase or decrease resource usage as needed, using only the correct size resources at any time, and achieve the goal of efficiently utilizing the overall resources. The 4G/5G operators hope to use this feature of the cloud to reduce OPEX spending. Another aspect of the NFVI besides providing redundant protection mechanisms is to enable virtual resources and VNF to be managed dynamically, including the addition and removal of VMs, ensuring that every vEPC function that runs is always properly configured and Operating environment.

Unfortunately, the aforementioned concept of dynamic resource scheduling is limited to the overall resources of a single server under the premise that existing applications are not rewritten. Considering that the telecom industry's NFV scale has already surpassed a single physical server and cannot adapt to the huge scale required by 5G's vEPC. What the telecommunication industry needs is to pool the overall resources of several physical servers and provide a scalable NFVI space. Under the premise that the NFVs in operation are not affected, the underlying NFVI resources can be dynamically increased or decreased. This is still out of reach. dream. Therefore, vEPC is designed to carry out additional signaling handshake processing to meet the needs of scalability and even maintainability.

Figure 5 shows that once the required VM resources of a single MME have surpassed all the resources that a physical server can provide, it is necessary to create a second set of MME VM instances on another physical server to form a single MME. The MME pool (Pool) can effectively bear more traffic. As to which MME copy is to be registered by the client of the login network, the Server Load Balancing (SLB) mechanism needs to be involved.

Traditional network architectures must have a set of load balancing servers to host the average allocation of traffic to each MME network in the back MME pool, which in turn constitutes a traffic bottleneck or single point of failure. Fortunately, the strength of SDN is here. The SLB function is now turned into a virtual function. From the Simple-Robin to the more complicated higher-order SLB RuleSet on the S1-MME interface, the ingress signalling pair is completed. MME Pool allocation work.

However, the task does not end. Because the user registered with MME1 and the user registered with MME2 will need to find each other, the 3GPP R10 specification has taken this requirement into account and created the S10 interface master task, which has been completed. The MME Pool exchanges and synchronizes the user registration information. In this scenario, once a hardware error occurs on an entity server, the vEPC upper management function must first perform a MME exchange for the user registered with the upper MME VM. The actions of the Handoff are migrated to other MME VMs on average through the coordination of the S10 interface. At this time, the administrator can remove the MME VM together with the damaged physical server. At this point, the burden on the remaining MME VMs will increase, and it may be necessary to schedule a normal physical server to join (Add) the Server Pool. After creating a new MME VM, the user will be moved back through the MME Handoff program to reach the MME VM again. The burden is balanced.

Considering that the SGW has similar requirements, note that the network components of the SGW-u have been virtualized into RuleSets of the SDN. Similar actions of the SGW Handoff can also be performed under the direction of the MME, and the users belonging to a certain SGW can be moved in or moved. It is a feasible method to replace the SDN Switch when the network exchange energy is insufficient or the network device is damaged.

SUPPORT vEPC market personnel cultivation as the primary task

With the rapid growth of data traffic, the rapid development of delay-sensitive applications, the dramatic increase in the number of connected population and devices, and the spatial density, and the rapid development of 5G-level demand for innovative value-added applications, the characteristics of SDN and NFV will inevitably make the telecommunications industry Operation brings about structural changes and impacts the existing telecom network equipment manufacturing, telecommunications system integration (the first two can be collectively referred to as the telecommunications solution providing industry), and telecommunication operations and other industrial ecosystems.

In the field of telecom solution provider industry, at this stage, many manufacturers are trying to seize the topic of the market and launch products into the market in advance. The strength of China Netcom, a large-scale supplier of other families, is like a river crossing. In the past two years or so, it can be said that Everyone is actively deploying the vEPC market. Everyone is gearing up to try and take away the traditional 4G market-dominant vendors such as ALU, Ericsson, Nokia, and Huawei, etc., in order to win the throne of the oligopolistic market. Of course, these vendors also Will not sit still. In the next 1-2 years, it is expected that new 5G vEPC products and solutions will be introduced at any time.

In the aspect of operators, after the original complex telecommunication core network system was reconstructed with the new vEPC software architecture, internal management and external application services were promoted. The technical threshold still required time to study and overcome the adjustment. Fortunately, cloud virtualization and Netcom professional The talent market is active and relatively abundant compared to the small-scale telecommunications core network engineering and management talents. After the introduction of vEPC, the industry faces the new challenge of how to implement the consolidation and reorganization of the functional components of multiple physical network components, thereby realizing the optimization of the network architecture and the resulting optimization of the signaling process. As for telecommunication network operation support The workload of management and emerging services is expected to only be simplified, which is different from traditional telecommunications core networks.

vEPC is still evolving. There is no expert who dares to assert its appearance in the future. What is certain is that it is recognized that it will start a new revolution in the telecommunications network industry by 2020. The industry chain, such as servers, SDN switches, cloud virtualization software, and telecom value-added application services, it has always been the strength of the Taiwan-funded communications industry. It is believed that the domestic manufacturers with keen sense of smell have already begun to look forward to the layout, but the distance is still There are many challenges and development bottlenecks that have yet to be overcome.

For example, in the development of vEPC, the cross-domain vEPC system architect roles such as high-energy computing platforms, IP networks, 4G/5G access technologies, telecommunication core networks, cloud virtualization, operation support and management, and innovative application services are needed. Since traditionally the aforementioned single areas have already become "wide in size," R&D engineers in a single field are unlikely to have cross-disciplinary experience, and will be a high-level system that is expected to be in short supply in the talent market where OEM is the mainstay in China. Talents, and such talents must be cultivated twenty years ago, and they must be trained in diversified industries. It is not that the schools can be trained out. Of course, it is not at this stage that the manufacturers can easily get their hands. This talent factor will be the key to the success of China's capital communications industry in the vEPC campaign.

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