This study examines the maturity and state of open-source 5G Core (5GC) networks, with a focus on their support of 5G procedures and Network Function (NF) operations. The research emphasises the importance of optimising the virtualised resource usage of 5GC control plane functions. Given the large set of NF operations and procedures defined for 5GC networks, the study presents a framework that correlates NF operations with 5G procedures, thus facilitating the assessment of 5GC implementations. Furthermore, the study introduces macro-benchmarking and micro-benchmarking approaches to assess the performance of 5GC control plane functions. Our 5G traffic generator is used to generate User Equipment (UE) registration traffic for benchmarking. Macro-benchmarking measures the time taken for a specific number of UEs to complete UE procedures. In contrast, micro-benchmarking analyses the system calls made by the 5GC, presenting their latency and frequency and the processes responsible for generating them. Our findings revealed a direct correlation between macro-level performance and micro-benchmarking results. This suggests that optimising micro-level implementations is crucial for enhancing overall system performance. Moreover, examining micro-benchmarking data can provide valuable insights into how the system’s performance will scale under varying workloads. We use the correlation of benchmarking results to identify performance improvement points in each 5GC and to provide recommendations for software architectural changes that can optimise the usage of virtualised resources. The study includes artefacts and source code to enable replication of the work and results.

With the wide adoption of edge compute infrastructures, an opportunity has arisen to deploy part of the functionality at the edge of the network to enable a localized connectivity service. This development is also supported by the adoption of “on-premises” local 5G networks addressing the needs of different vertical industries and by new standardized infrastructure services such as Mobile Edge Computing (MEC). This article introduces a comprehensive set of deployment options for the 5G network and its network management, complementing MEC with the connectivity service and addressing different classes of use cases and applications. We have also practically implemented and tested the newly introduced options in the form of slices within a standard-based testbed. Our performed validation proved their feasibility and gave a realistic perspective on their impact. The qualitative assessment of the connectivity service gives a comprehensive overview on which solution would be viable to be deployed for each vertical market and for each large-scale operator situation, making a step forward towards automated distributed 5G deployments.

With the centralization of the RAN control functionality, a very large number of near real-time network optimization use cases have emerged. Until now, each of them has been implemented and validated as isolated network management functions, named xApps in Open RAN terminology. To be able to progress towards realistic, commercially deployable functionality, comprehensive conflict mitigation is needed, because the complete isolation of these xApps would result in conflicting decisions and instability. In this article, we study how the majority of these use cases can be implemented harmoniously, to create an enhanced RAN control plane, underlining the functionality required from the central units of the RAN, the grouping, and the interaction of the network management decision. Analyzing the gap existing in the O-RAN architecture, we identify the functionality needed and propose a management framework. Furthermore, we present an implementation roadmap for the development of such functionality as part of the Fraunhofer FOKUS Open5GCore toolkit, as a reference for how such functionality can be prototyped, validated, and integrated with external algorithms easily, to benefit from the large body of academic research.