What is “Cloud Native” from an application’s or network function’s point of view? It means that the application is designed to run optimally in the cloud environment by taking full advantage of its benefits. In this whitepaper we look at cloud native’s attributes and we identify important aspects that affect an application’s efficiency, performance and agility: it must be infrastructure agnostic, microservices architecture based, and support Open APIs and continuous delivery / DevOps.
In 5G’s service-based architecture (SBA), we designed Nokia’s Shared Data Layer (SDL) to consolidate subscriber and session data within a highly reliable and scalable repository. Separating data from the application’s processing boosts robustness and business agility by allowing the application to focus on service logic. From the subscriber’s point of view, stateless functions guarantee better user experiences and it creates opportunities for many 3rd party cloud applications.
This whitepaper takes a close look at the core network’s evolution to 5G, which runs in parallel to the services evolution that CSPs are offering to their customers. We investigate the term “service agility” and answer the following questions:
- Why separate an application’s processing from its data storage elements?
- How to store the subscriber and session data securely and provide access for VNFs via industry standard protocols in a fast, robust and secure way?
- How to serve the core VNFs’ needs with SDL data?
- How these data can be exposed to analytics or any other 3rd party cloud applications via Open APIs?
- What ecosystem can be built around data exposure?
Then we examine how Nokia’s Shared Data Layer helps operators with their business:
- Can an operator address new business and revenue opportunities with SDL?
- Is it possible to save costs and reduce TCO?
- Can the time for service creation and introduction be reduced to achieve a better time to market?
The whitepaper examines these questions and provides you with our insights, which were learned in early commercial API deployments from around the world.
As we mentioned, SDL must be highly reliable, robust, secure and fulfill required SLAs. Therefore, we also provide insights into SDL security and related aspects of data protection in the cloud.
Finally, it is important to describe the case of an operator who decided to migrate to Shared Data Layer. The operator’s service must be uninterrupted, and all data must be safely migrated. The need of a flexible and automated migration tool is inevitable.
All of the above leads to a closer understanding the nature of the cloud-native 5G core network and one fundamental element of it: the Shared Data Layer.
To download the whitepaper, please access to the following link:
https://pages.nokia.com/T0041F.Creating-new-data-freedom-with-the-Shared-Data-Layer.html