Int5Gent: An integrated end-to-end system platform for verticals and data plane solutions beyond 5G Dimitrios Klonidis 1 , Dimitris Apostolopoulos 2 , Georgios P. Katsikas 1 , Giannis Giannoulis 2 , Konstantina Kanta 2 , Kostas Tokas 2 , Thanos Xirofotos 1 , Raul Muñoz 3 , Francesca Moscatelli 4 , Guy Torfs 5 , Christos Vagionas 6 , David Larrabeiti Lopez 7 , Zhongxia Simon He 8 , Janez Sterle 9 , Dotan Levi 10 , George Lyberopoulos 11 , Victor Lopez Alvarez 12 , Eleni Trouva 13 , Yigal Leiba 14 , Xavier Vilajosana 15 , J. Carles Terés Casals 16 , Hercules Avramopoulos 2 1 UBITECH, Athens, Greece, (dklonidis@ubitech.eu) 2 Photonic Communications Research Laboratory, National Technical University of Athens, Athens Greece 3 Centre Technologic de Telecomunications de Catalunya, Barcelona, Spain 4 Nextworks S.r.l., Pisa, Italy 5 Ghent University – IMEC, Ghent, Belgium 6 Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Thessaloniki, Greece 7 Universidad Carlos III de Madrid, Madrid, Spain 8 SINOWAVE AB, Hovas, Sweden 9 Internet Institute LTD, Ljublijana, Slovenia 10 Mellanox Technologies LTD., Yokneam, Israel 11 COSMOTE Mobile Telecommunications S.A. , Athens, Greece 12 Telefonica Investigacion y Dessarollo, Madrid, Spain 13 INTRASOFT International S.A., Luxemburg 14 SIKLU Communication LTD., Petach Tikwa, Israel 15 Worlsensing SL. Barcelona Spain 16 Ferrocarrils de la Generalitat de Catalunya – FGC, Barcelona, Spain Abstract—Int5Gent targets the integration of innovative data plane technology building blocks under a flexible 5G network resource, slice and application orchestration framework, providing a complete 5G system platform for the validation of advance 5G services and Internet of Things (IoT) solutions. The platform can act as the enabler for the transition beyond the current 5G networking capabilities allowing novel and state-of- the-art data transport and edge processing solutions to be evaluated under a cutting-edge network orchestration framework, with intelligent service allocation and management capabilities. A sample of the envisioned technologies include: flexible multi-Radio Access Technology (multi-RAT) baseband signal processing, millimeter Wave (mmWave)technology solutions at 60GHz and 150GHz bands, hardware-based edge processor with Time Sensitive Networking (TSN), Graphical Processing Unit (GPU)processing capabilities, and elastic Software Defined Networking (SDN)-based photonic data transport. The integration of the technology blocks is performed as part of an overall architecture that promotes edge processing and is orchestrated by a Network Function Virtualization Orchestrator (NFVO) compatible framework with edge node extensions at the network layer and an overlay vertical services application orchestrator at the user plane layer. Keywords—5G, Beyond 5G, SDN/NFV, Edge processing, Orchestration, mmWave. I. INTRODUCTION The deployment of advanced 5G infrastructures that extend from the data plane technology blocks to the control plane and application deployment layer, is of paramount importance for the proper evaluation and showcasing of innovative infrastructure (i.e. data transport, switching and processing) solutions able to meet demanding functional requirements stemming from vertical applications, thus extending even beyond the current 5G capabilities. From the networking point of view, the increasing interest in new use cases with strict latency requirements, fast service deployment times, dynamicity and trustworthiness generates a clear trend towards distributed network models implemented through the edge computing concept [1]. Essentially, this concept alters the typical and simple-structured cloud-based connectivity model (access-core-cloud) to a mesh type model in which some functions must be executed at the edge part of the network and provide feedback to the attached end user devices, while portions of data can also be passed to the cloud. The complexity increases further by considering different types of edge nodes that may span from simple gateway servers to mini- data centers (DCs), thus having different connectivity requirements. From the data plane point of view, the new technology building blocks should enable the 5G network infrastructure to provide the flexible high capacity and expandable connectivity between 5G terminals and edge computing nodes as well as among mobile edge, computing and content delivery nodes, and the core infrastructure supporting also the legacy cloud computing level. For this purpose, the move towards higher operating bands (V, W and even D-band) and the deployment of photonic interconnection solutions are necessary and require efficient elements for data distribution and demanding RF electronic system designs. In