ENI#8 meeting summary

ENI#8 was held on 3-5 December in 5Tonic labs in Madrid, hosted by UC3M (University Carlos III of Madrid) and Telefonica: the host gave a presentation of the 5tonic laboratory. Attendees included members and participants of the group including Government Ministry Institutes. It was a fruitful meeting with over 80 documents handled.

This meeting was important to discuss the ISG ENI extension terms of reference for Release 2 going into its second term. The group updated the Terms of Reference accordingly and will ask ETSI’s Director General for an extension from April 2019 to March 2021, based on the growing ongoing and future work of the group.

Expected and Future work of ETSI ISG ENI

The ongoing activities of ISG ENI are spread over the following broad areas:

• Revision/maintenance of already published documents
• Architecture framework
  • accomplish the Use Cases and Requirements for a generic technology independent architecture (activity carried out in every release)
  • report detailing a gap analysis of work on context-aware and policy-based standards, GR ENI 003
  • generic technology independent system architecture of a network supervisory assistant system will be specified in Release 1 based on the ‘observe-orient-decide-act’ control loop model with reference points description and flows
  • information model for the main objects in the System Architecture (in Release 2)
  • enhancement of the System Architecture to include interfaces and protocols, detailed functional flow diagrams, sequence and interaction diagrams, state machine diagrams, Reference Points, APIs (activity envisaged for Release 2
  • specification of a phased approach on the adoption across the industry of AI features is envisioned, allowing migration in compliance with the ENI system and its associated reference points
  • interworking outlining the use of reference points and APIs (activity envisaged for Release 2)
  • report that outlines the best practices to preserve network data privacy (activity envisaged for Release 2)
• AI framework
  • an outline on the categories and types of Artificial intelligence that can be used in a system,
    • a report in Release 1 was already published and the related specification will follow
  • a report that outlines the capabilities of AI equipment (activity envisaged for Release 2)
• Security framework
  • a security model and security architecture that will be developed in Release 2
• PoC framework
  • increase of the number of PoCs
  • recommend new PoCs to follow the ENI architecture, support the Reference Points and provide essential feedback to the Reference Points definition
  • preparation to evolve to ENI Plugtests™ events, Hackathons (activities envisaged for Release 2)
• Cooperation with internal and external entities, e.g.:
  • coordinated activities with security groups (including ETSI TC CYBER) to ensure that all communications between ENI and Assisted Systems operate securely (activity envisaged for Release 2)
  • Open Source work in cooperation with the Linux Foundation and other Open Source Communities (OSCs), including ETSI OSM (activity envisaged for Release 2)
  • H2020 projects and other research entities with promotion and organization of workshops and other demos
    • demonstration of one or two use cases related with System Architecture in Release 1, others in Release 2
  • dissemination of the ENI concept foundations through several media/tutorial events.

Some examples of Proofs of Concept:

• The China Telecom lead PoC Demonstration on AI modelling on the Network Slicing reconfiguration a second more complex demonstration.

Today we have a China Telecom led PoC (Proof of Concept) underway (a further mid-time) report was approved at ENI#8. The PoC description and presentation is on the public ETSI ENI WiKi Pages (ENI Wiki). The PoC had an impressive presentation at the Global Network Technology Conference (GNTC) in November with a multi node AI slicing reconfiguration. The Global Network Technology Conference (GNTC) invited experts from the Chinese Academy of Engineering, network technology pioneers of countries, and selected experts of the Internet Hall of Fame to deliver speeches. In addition, the conference collaborated with experts and contributors from ONF, MEF, APNIC, IPv6 Forum, OPNFV, ONAP, 3GPP and other communities to communicate with the audience on the latest technological achievements.

• The updated progress from 5G-MoNAch on an elastic network slicing PoC.

After its creation a second 5G-MoNArch Led a PoC – based on an electric network slicing the progress was noted and accepted. The PoC description and presentation is on the public ETSI ENI WiKi Pages (ENI Wiki). A demonstration is expected in the spring on 2019.

• The proposal from H2020 SliceNet / Portugal Telecom.

A New PoC is proposed by Portugal Telecom related to the H2020 Slicenet project. It is a SliceNet draft PoC proposal for Predictive Fault Management of E2E Multi-Domain Network Slices. It is expected that a formal proposal will be available after ENI#8. Once approved it will be added to the PoC description and presentation on the public ETSI ENI WiKi Pages (ENI Wiki).

• The proposal from H2020 Shield / Telefónica.

A New PoC is proposed by Telefónica related to the H2020 Shield project. The Shield PoC draft proposal deals with Securing Against Intruders and other threats through a NFV-enabled environment.

It is expected that a formal proposal will be available after ENI#8. Once approved it will be added to the PoC description and presentation on the public ETSI ENI WiKi Pages (ENI Wiki).

• The creation of a new PoC on Adding System Architecture and Measurement to the PoC Framework is being discussed.

Other ongoing work

Other work topics were discussed during the meeting, they include work on AI network categorization and the progress on the System Architecture and external reference points, included in ENI 005 system architecture, will lead to a new specification. The use case specification will be revised, to add a new Wireless use case and to select 3 priority Use cases.

Experiential Networked Intelligence (ENI) Work Items:

• ENI 001 (WI RGS/ENI-008) Use Cases
• ENI 002 (WI RGS/ENI-007) Requirements
• ENI 004 (WI RGR/ENI-010) Terminology
• ENI 005 (WI DGS/ENI-005) System Architecture
• ENI 006 (WI DGS/ENI-012) PoC Framework (New WI in ETSI approval)
• ENI 007 (WI RGR/ENI-011) Definition of Networked Intelligence Categorization

The six work items with numbers 005, 007, 008, 010, 011 and 012 are open and active. A new Report or Group Specification on ENI PoC Framework was opened.

ISG ENI has presently 45 Members, the full list is available on the ETSI Member Portal.