The ENI#18 meeting was online only as many countries were affected by travel restrictions or delegates not allowed to travel. It took place at 7-10 June 2021.

• 26 ISG members all of which were present.
• Operators: Telefonica, China Telecom, China Mobile, China Unicom, NTT, Deutsche Telekom, and Portugal Telecom.
• 115 documents were handled.

Let’s remind that the ISG is open to ETSI members and non-ETSI members alike. The different players in the value chain are welcome to join the ISG effort, contribute to the development of these key specifications and demonstrate Proofs of Concepts (PoCs). To join, please contact: isgsupport@etsi.org

The ETSI ENI Industry Specification Group was created in Feb 2017, today members come from operators, vendors and research institutes all over the world.

Highlights of the meeting

The meeting was productive and achieved significant progress. GR ENI 009 on Data Processing mechanisms was published during the meeting. The meeting finalized release 2 with the approval of the following deliverables, all planned to be ratified in 30 days RCs: GR ENI 016 “Functional Concepts”, GR ENI 017 “Overview of Prominent Control Loop Architectures” and GR ENI 018 “Artificial Intelligence Mechanisms”.

GS ENI 005 work-item Revision GS ENI 005, was presented for stable draft approval by the rapporteur. It is now pending a legally binding MoU regarding the reference to MEF Policy Management Model and MEF Core Management Model. The Terminology report GR 004 work item Revision GR ENI 004 was also presented for stable draft approval by the rapporteur, however it requires some alignment before approval. It was agreed at a Resolution meeting that these documents may be approved at the start of July 2021.

An open area is approved, where all stable drafts and previously published deliverables are available.

Work in Progress and Published Work during ETSI ISG ENI Release 2

Experiential Networked Intelligence (ENI) Release 2 specifications and reports published in the release 2 timeframe include:

• ENI 001 Use Cases
• ENI 002 Requirements
• ENI 004 Terminology
• ENI 005 System Architecture
• ENI 008 Intent Aware Network Autonomicity
• ENI 009 Data Mechanisms
• ENI 010 Evaluation of categories for AI application to Networks
• ENI 016 Functional Concepts for Modular System Operation
• ENI 017 Overview of Prominent Control Loop Architectures
• ENI 018 Artificial Intelligence Mechanisms for Modular Systems

All of the active Release 2 work-items were discussed and progressed.

Work in progress and expected during Release 3

Release 3 will start by continuing the work on the following five Work Items:

• ENI 011 (WI DGR/ENI-0021) Mapping between ENI architecture and operational systems
• ENI 012 (WI DGR/ENI-0022) Reactive In-situ Flow Information Telemetry to be
• ENI 013 (WI DGR/ENI-0023) Intent Policy Model Gap analysis
• ENI 015 (WI DGR/ENI-0025) Processing and Management of Intent Policy

ENI 019 (WI DGS/ENI-0029) ENI Models It was decided to turn Work-Item RGR/ENI-0024 “Evaluation Method for Autonomicity” as a revision of the published GR ENI 010 v1.1.1, the original WI was replaced. In its place a New Work-Item RGR/ENI-010v121 was created, see further down.

New Work-Items approved for work during Release 3

Two new work-items for Release 3 were approved, in this meeting:

1. NWI RGR/ENI-010v121 “Evaluation of categories for AI application to Networks”: this is a revision of GR ENI 010 on “Evaluation Method for Autonomicity”, targeted to further investigate the measure and evaluate categories for AI applications, which will be published in release 3 as v1.2.1.
2. NWI RGR/ENI-009v121 “Data Process Mechanisms”: this is a revision of GR ENI 009 on Data Mechanisms Release 2, targeted to investigate Big Data and its classification, which will be published in release 3 as v1.2.1.

Status of Proofs of Concepts

Two Proof of Concept projects were changed and four status reports acctepted.

• PoC#12 on “Intelligent Transmission Network Optimization” led by China Mobile reported as final, the closure will be after a two week review of the final report.
• A New PoC#14 on “Intent-based Cloud Management (IBCM)” led by NTT was presented for June 2021 until mid-2022. This is in Review

The PoC descriptions and presentations are available on the public ETSI ENI WiKi Pages (ENI Wiki). The Wiki pages are revised with the latest reports and demos.

White Paper

A 2nd ENI whitepaper expressing the strategy for the future of the ENI work is approved and published authored by a team of ENI members.

The ISG will now focus on Release 3 of the work.

Future plenary meetings

The next ENI plenary meeting (ENI#19) will be electronically on-line, travel restrictions caused by the covid-19 virus are the reason for adopting this solution.