Overview

Rapidly emerging technologies such as SDN, NFV and Cloud computing are leading to widespread adoption of softwarised infrastructures, that will form the foundation of 5G networks. However, softwarisation has also led to the proliferation of highly complex and error-prone control planes, significantly complicating software development. Modern-day development practices follow the DevOps paradigm, which promotes a tight coupling of the development (“Dev”) and operation (“Ops”) of applications, such that they can optimally exploit the underlying infrastructure. For example, AR, VR and XR functions of next-generation media applications should be placed in close proximity to users (i.e. at Multi-access Edge Computing (MEC) nodes) to minimise latency. This creates huge overheads for supporting different platforms, as vertical applications need to support the corresponding platform Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) and undergo extensive testing to ensure they meet the service-level KPIs. To this end, 5GMediaHub will offer a testing infrastructure which is compatible with industry standard DevOps processes, streamlining and simplifying testing and KPI verification. Furthermore, leveraging the NFV Infrastructures of its 5G PPP testbeds in Oslo (i.e. TNOR’s ICT-17 5G-VINNI) and in Spain (i.e. CTTC’s ICT-19 5G testbed in 5G-SOLUTIONS), 5GMediaHUB will offer “Platform as a Service” (PaaS) capabilities via a set of open-standards Northbound APIs provided by a corresponding set of application enablement services, termed NetApps. These include both vertical-specific media NetApps and vertical-agnostic NetApps, hosted in a NetApps Repository, which supports uploading 3rd party media NetApps or even NetApps from other vertical domains.