5G Programmable Infrastructure Orchestration Using ONAP

Telco operators are currently reinventing their operational model by adopting agile principles and making the shift from hardware centric towards software centric networks. 5G is not coming only with a very advanced radio layer, but also with the evolutionary concept in which the network is programmable and accessible through Application Programming Interfaces (APIs). This stands as a game changer and it will allow verticals (e.g., transport, media, energy) to seamlessly integrate their applications within the 5G ecosystem. This paper presents a programmable infrastructure leveraging Open Network Automation Platform (ONAP) capabilities developed within two European projects 5G-EVE and 5G-VICTORI. The focus is on presenting the work performed for Virtual Network Functions (VNFs) onboarding, deployment and in life management together with the 5G slicing capabilities for Radio Access and Core networks. Keywords-ONAP; programmable infrastructure, VNF; vRAN; vEPC; Openstack.