Real-time aggregation framework in a 5G SDN self-management environment

The next-generation 5G mobile networks are expected to bring a major shift on the management paradigm based on Network Function Virtualization (NFV) and Software-Defined Networking (SDN) compared with its precursor, 4G. Consequently, operators need to significantly change their network architectures, management mechanisms and business models to accommodate and address the 5G challenges. This paper contributes to advancing the operators' management capabilities in the monitoring and analytic domains, looking at the evolution of the existing performance management platform from a leading operator to a new SDN/NFV-enabled platform, in the context of the EU 5G project SELFNET. This work focuses on designing and prototyping the essential functionalities to perform real-time processing over network infrastructure data. This work devises a new Complex Event Processing (CEP) framework, a realtime framework for processing and aggregating big data using a dynamic rule-based approach. This CEP framework has been successfully implemented and deployed, with aggregation rules applied to a Self-Protection use case, which is able to provide in real-time information about detected botnets in the network. From a high-level perspective, this work brings some new understanding about the role of SDN/NFV network management tools for 5G network operators.