Overview
HCLTech and Blue Planet have partnered to deliver digital transformation services to communication service providers and enterprises. As a part of the partnership, HCLTech and Blue Planet are jointly developing NSaaS (Network Slicing as a Service). This enables the service provider and enterprises to dynamically create a network slice to deliver a particular service. HCLTech will be using Blue Planet Orchestrator from Blue Planet Product portfolio to develop HCLTech Network Slice Manager. Blue Planet product portfolio and its offering is explained in section five and beyond in this document.
5G slicing implementation
Objective is to implement a 5G dynamic slicing service using Blue Planet Orchestrator. This concept enables an on-demand slicing based on User Equipment request.
HSM (HCLTech Slice Manager)
HSM will enable an end-to-end (E2E) slice selection flow, which will create dynamic slice based on an operator’s request. It will create a slice above an orchestrator layer which will communicate with Blue Planet.
Once a User Equipment requests a slice, the system will validate whether the requested slice exists or not. If it exists, the system will select the slice and not perform any additional change. If it doesn’t exist, the system will trigger an instantiation of a brand new slice with dynamic portfolio. This slice will be instantiated using Blue Planet Orchestrator and have scale-in/scale-out handling capabilities.
The end-to-end slice flow will be orchestrated starting from 5G Radio Access Network through 5G core. A unique Network Slice Selection Assistance Identifier (NSSAID) will be triggered every time a request is being processed. This NSSAID will be used to instantiate individual Network Functions, both in virtual Radio Access Network (vRAN) and the core infrastructure. The segregation will be done based on the Control and User Plane solution.
Blue Planet Intelligent Automation portfolio
The Blue Planet® Intelligent Automation portfolio automates and optimizes business processes. It helps operators increase network and service agility, improve the customer experience, and reduce operational costs. Open and standards-based, Blue Planet works with any vendor’s network elements and leverages open APIs (Application Program Interface) to streamline integration with third-party software systems. Blue Planet leverages leading-edge technologies to enable intelligent automation across IT and network operations. It efficiently fulfills, manages and assures today’s dynamic and on-demand services.
Intelligent automation is the path to the Adaptive Network™
The world is increasingly connected with growing subscribers, devices and applications, the rise of Internet of Things (IoT) and machine-to-machine communications. To make profit from these long-term trends, the network providers need greater agility, efficiency and automation across their network infrastructure. The Blue Planet Intelligent Automation portfolio meets these needs by facilitating the adoption of technologies, such as Network Functions Virtualization (NFV) and Software-Defined Networking (SDN) to modernize and transform operations. It also enables a pragmatic path toward the adaptive network.
Blue Planet, a division of Ciena, is a comprehensive software suite combining orchestration, advanced analytics, inventory, and network service assurance in a common architecture. It provides the extensibility and openness needed to power the digital transformation.
Blue Planet products, which can be deployed individually or in any combination, include:
- Inventory (BPI)
- Service Order Management (SOM)
- Multi-Domain Service Orchestration (MDSO)
- NFV Orchestration (NFVO)
- Route Optimization and Analysis (ROA)
- Unified Assurance and Analytics (UAA)
