Providing Heterogeneous Signaling and User Traffic for 5G Core Network Functional Testing

In the next 10 years, the telecommunications sector will be dominated by the deployment of pervasive networking available in a wide range of heterogeneous scenarios applying 5G (and beyond) technologies. SDN, NFV as well as Network Sliding Technologies used by 5G will provide a “softwarization” of the network functional elements, opening the ecosystem of network providers to a vast number of suppliers from traditional manufacturers to start-ups focusing on specialized functions. Due to the need to assert the expected interoperability of the introduction and evolution of this set of Network Functions, a set of validation tools is needed to explore traffic patterns according to different scenarios and thus allow the performance of the software modules to be evaluated. This research work presents the design of software tools that aim to provide a way for generating signaling and user traffic in 5G networks, enabling the definition of novel pure-software testing environments for 5G that includes real signaling and user traffic. The tools have been designed to support a set of testing signaling procedures that cover the basic main functioning of 5G networks and that allow for the transmission of user traffic over the network. The tools have been implemented and licensed as Open Source and have been validated through their deployment in a virtualized 5G environment that includes a 5G core network.