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The wide range of use cases in 5G requires extra effort in making the 5G network more flexible, agile, scalable, and secure. The network core is where it all starts. The core of a telco network is where all the important decisions are made related to signaling, policy, charging, routing, and more. The fifth generation of mobile networks has radically changed the way elements in the core communicate with each other. The 5G Core control-plane functions follow a Service-Based Architecture (SBA), where network elements advertise and provide services that can be consumed by other elements in the core through application programming interfaces (APIs).
Oracle Communications provides a full set of 5G Core NFs, with a special focus on:
The following figure shows the Oracle 5G Core portfolio:
Oracle’s strategy is to provide core network signaling functions that leverage Oracle expertise and strength. The following components are responsible for:
The policy framework is one of the key components of the 5G network, empowering CSPs to better differentiate and customize tailored offerings for a wide range of consumer and enterprise use cases. At the core of the Oracle Communications solution policy is a flexible and intuitive policy design experience that uses new tools and architecture for design, run-time, debugging, and testing. This design enables CSPs to generate and test operator policies from scratch and deploy them into their production environment in minutes. The evolution to 5G requires a coherent and unified policy across the network that can easily influence edge computing routing and integration with network data analytics for smarter and more dynamic policy decisions. The solution must be agile and secure enough to manage different domain-specific policies for more differentiated and personalized customer offerings. It must also possess a policy framework that is granular enough to manage individual services and be capable of managing diverse services across network slices. Therefore, policy plays an even more important role in 5G than in any of the proceeding generations of network technologies.
In addition to the need to generate new revenue streams, the top priorities for operators throughout the different mobile technology generations have been reducing network maintenance costs, handling traffic overload, managing signaling peaks, and securing the network from any kind of attack or breach. With the introduction of cloud-native technologies and the addition of another “G” to the spectrum, addressing these challenges is even more critical and complex in 5G. Oracle’s cloud-native 5G Core NFs enable CSPs to build a scalable, flexible, and secure signaling and routing framework as well as a routing and selection framework to manage the signaling complexity of 5G networks, ensuring that the network is robust enough to adapt to the evolving needs of your business.
The following section of this guide provides a brief description of the Oracle NFs. For more information, see the links in Oracle documentation.
The PCF enables service providers to control the 5G network by implementing complex policies decisions based on network, subscriber, and service information. This information includes session management (SM) policies, access and mobility management (AM) policies, and policy authorization (PA) services. Use of these policies provides tailored offerings for a wide range of use cases—from Enhanced Mobile Broadband through Ultra-Reliable and Low Latency Communication to Massive IoT.
The unified data repository (UDR) hosts the structured data for Unified Data Management (UDM), Oracle Communications’ PCF, and NEF, as defined by 3GPP. The UDR architecture provides a highly available, distributed, and flexible data storage platform using service-based cloud-native design principles. The data repository is based on Oracle MySQL cluster technology, which supports both SQL and NoSQL database access and leverages Oracle expertise in delivering carrier-grade database solutions that are optimized for real-time critical requirements.
Different NFs in a 5G network coordinate with PCF to provide call, messaging, data, and other support services to users. To support all subscribers and user equipment (UE), multiple and separately addressable instances of the PCF are deployed in the network. Therefore, different NFs need binding support to identify the right PCF instance for session correlation and policy revalidation. BSF provides this binding support in the 5G Core network.
NRF works as a centralized repository for all the 5G Core NFs in an operator’s network. The repository maintains updated records of the services that are provided by each of the elements in the 5G Core that can be instantiated, scaled, and terminated without manual intervention. This decoupling between the service provider and the service consumer increases the flexibility, scalability, and efficiency of the new 5G Core network, and helps operators manage their 5G network effectively by providing automated resource control in the core.
The new SBA brings unprecedented benefits for operators. However, this architecture is not fully equipped to deal with some of the major challenges that come with increased signaling traffic, such as:
The Service Communications Proxy (SCP) addresses this problem by creating a secure 5G Core signaling architecture that provides routing control, resiliency, and observability into the 5G Core network. Oracle SCP is aligned with the latest 3GPP standards and can also be configured to work in prestandard mode to interwork with NFs that do not support Rel-16 headers.
Along with increased speed, bandwidth, and latency, 5G and cloud-native technologies enable new business models and offer customized dedicated network slices for different services across various industries. This requires a high degree of deployment flexibility and efficient network resource utilization for operators so that they can help enterprises to efficiently launch innovative services in a cost-effective way. The network slice selection function (NSSF) provides network slice selection capabilities by enabling service providers to configure end-to-end dedicated logical network instances that are optimized for specific functional requirements of different applications and services.
Security edge protection proxy (SEPP) is a nontransparent proxy sitting at the edge of the PLMN network and enabling secured inter-PLMN NF communication. Oracle Communications SEPP supports both standard and nonstandard security frameworks.
Network exposure function (NEF) securely exposes the 5G network capabilities to Application Functions. Exposure functions act as a centralized point for service exposure and play a key role in authorizing all access requests originating from outside the 3GPP network to enable Cellular IoT, non-IoT, edge computing, and API gateway use cases for operators.
The Charging Function (CHF) is based on Oracle Communications Billing and Revenue Management (BRM). It acts as an Account Balance Management Function (ABMF) with the BRM Elastic Charging Engine (ECE) as a Converged Charging Server, a well-integrated and proven solution in mobile broadband deployments.