The 5GASP project has built and is operating an Open and Inter-Domain 5G NFV-based Reference (Open5G-NFV) ecosystem of experimental facilities that is catering for the instantiation of fully softwarised architectures of vertical industries (e.g. Automotive, cooperative mobility and PPDR) for testing, validation and pre-certification. This close to real-life state-of-the-art 5G infrastructure, is supporting SMEs with fully automated and self-service provisioning, in order to foster rapid development and testing of new and innovative 5G network applications.
Development and testing of new and innovative 5G network applications is not easy, but can be fostered by building on top of already existing 5G physical infrastructures. 5GASP focuses on innovations related to the operation of experiments and tests across multiple domains, providing software support tools for Continuous Integration and Deployment (CI/CD) of VNFs and CNFs and providing facilities to test and validate network applications taking into consideration vertical-specific requirements.
5GASP has unearthed many complexities in the integration of software stacks of the 5G reference architecture and has been quite innovative in supporting all the additional requirements of the domain verticals of PPDR and Automotive. In doing so 5GASP has driven down the complexity for deploying to the mobile edge, and also reduces the complexity faced by system integrators and independent software vendors as they package the software of their network application. While demonstrating its Open5G-NFV ecosystem in these domains however it is also generic enough to deploy, validate and certify 5G network applications stemming from other verticals market domains too.
Since the 5GASP platform is an experimental platform, its potential fits well with the current status in the field of PPDR communications, providing an all-in-one PPDR-grade environment for development, testing and verification of 5G PPDR network architectures and services. Among common features the 5GASP environment provides a virtual On-Board Unit (vOBU), a virtual RoadSide Unit (RSU), a ITS station, Multi-domain Migration, Vehicle-to-Cloud (V2C) Real-Time Communication, Remote Human Driving, Efficient MEC Handover, Privacy Analysis, 5G Isolated Operation for Public Safety, and Vehicle Route Optimization. In addition the 5GASP PPDR testbeds offers availability of development and testing in cross-border environment and in isolated-operation mode (IOPS), providing additional flexibility for the customer in terms of locations where certain 5GASP platform features can be utilized. The 5GASP certification process in PPDR can also lead to interesting further linkages to 5G multi-vendor marketplaces such as the 5GASP partner VMware’s Ready for Telco program. By linking to such marketplaces it increases your market reach, be in a shop window towards potential collaborators (vendors, service providers, and system integrators) and reduces time to market.
