Operating Systems for 5G Services Infrastructures: Convergence between IT and Telecommunications industry structures

The intertwining of several techno-economic drivers are creating the conditions for a profound Digital Transformation of the Digital Society and Economy. In this context, we are witnessing evidences that a common reference model is emerging for future 5G infrastructures. If on one side Central Offices are becoming Data Centers, then future infrastructures will look like pervasive networks integrating both large Data Centres (i.e., Cloud Computing) and medium-small ones (e.g., MEC), through a transparent connectivity fabric (e.g., transparent fixed-radio access). This paper elaborates about the concept of an Operating System (OS) as the strategic software platform for executing management, control and orchestration functions and services in these future infrastructures. The paper addresses also the ways this Digital Transformation will bring to the unification of the service modeling itself: in fact "anything" (from resources, to functionalities, from capabilities to services) will be provided/accessed/managed through standard APIs, made available by the OS across the different levels of 5G infrastructures (e.g., IaaS, PaaS and SaaS).