A Live Demonstration of In-Band Telemetry in OSM-Orchestrated Core Networks

Abstract

Network Function Virtualization is a key enabler to building future mobile networks in a flexible and cost-efficient way. Such a network is expected to manage and maintain itself with minimum human intervention. With early deployments of the fifth generation of mobile technologies -5G -around the world, setting up 4G/5G experimental infrastructure is necessary to optimally design Self-Organising Networks (SON). In this demo, we present a custom small-scale 4G/5G testbed. As a step towards self-healing, the testbed integrates Programming Protocol-independent Packet Processors (P4) virtual switches, that are placed along interfaces between different components of transport and core network. This demo not only shows the administration and monitoring of the Evolved Packet Core VNF components, using OPEN SOURCE MANO, but also serves as a proof of concept for the potential of P4-based telemetry in detecting anomalous behaviour of the mobile network, such as a congestion in the transport part.

Programmable Data Plane Applications in 5G and Beyond Architectures: A Systematic Review

“…Dreibholz et al [ 93 ] describe a 4G/5G testbed where P4 switches are used to perform in-band network telemetry. The telemetry data is sent to a collector that gathers information about traffic flows and switch queue status.…”

“…The study described in [ 93 ] demonstrates that the end-to-end round trip time (RTT) and dequeue time can be accurately measured using their implementation of INT. Another work in [ 94 ] reported that the INT load did not have a significant impact on end-to-end latency, as it was found to be below 1 ms.…”