September, 2020
By Thomas Tovinger, SA5 Chair, Zou Lan, SA5 Vice-Chair, Maryse Gardella, SA5 Vice-Chair. (Article first published in HIGHLIGHTS Issue 01, Sept. 2020).
TSG SA WG5 (SA5) is reponsible for all specification work for Telecom Management (TM) of the 3GPP network. This includes aspects such as operation, orchestration, assurance, fulfillment, automation and charging; covering both functional and service perspectives.
Important areas where SA5 is actively involved and developing specifications with full support of automation are:
- Telecom management architecture framework;
- Service Management, Network Management, Element Management & Charging Management;
- Management aspects of energy efficiency;
- Exposure of management services to entities external to the network operator (like verticals);
- Data collection for Telecom Management;
- Services and functions which support orchestration, assurance and analytics;
- Services and functions for charging for end users or Service Providers, including capabilities for wholesale roaming;
- Charging and Management aspects of supporting new services for public and non-public networks.
Release 16 – all about 5G
With Rel-16 we have provided management support to new services, autonomous network management and management of new 5G network features.
Some highlights include the introduction of new management aspects of Service-level Agreements (SLA), providing management support to new services, where the SLA is translated into cross-domain requirements and then broken down to requirements within each domain.
For improving operational efficiency, 5G SON, Management of Minimization of driving test (MDT) in 5G and 5G Energy Efficiency solutions have been made in Release 16. Also, the Closed loop SLS Assurance solution has progressed, as a feature to help operators to deliver service quality by adjusting and optimizing 5G-RAN and 5G Core services.
Progress was also made on several charging work items, of particular note was the extension of Charging management into the new area of Network Slicing, building capabilities for Operators to monetize based on Network Slice lifecycle management, and Network slice Performance and Analytics.
Other work completed includes: Network Resource Model (NRM) enhancements, Streaming report mechanism for trace, performance measurement and KPI data collection, new performance measurements and KPI definitions for the 5G network, 3GPP-ONAP integration solution and Charging aspects in new domains such as 5G connection and mobility, enhancement to the charging aspects of Wireless and Wireline Convergence for 5G, NEF Northbound API, 5G Core interworking with EPC.
Release 17 work plan
SA5 is now starting Release 17 work on Autonomous network levels, Enhancements on EE for 5G networks, Management of non-public networks, Enhanced Closed loop SLS Assurance, Intent driven management service for mobile networks, QoE Measurement Collection, IP-Multimedia Subsystem (IMS) Charging in 5G System (5GS), Additional network resource model features.
Ongoing Release 17 studies include topics such as; Management and orchestration aspects with integrated satellite components in a 5G network, Management data analytics service, Charging aspects of Edge Computing.
Planned completion of all SA5 Release 17 work is in September 2021. A full list of the SA5 standards is in the public domain, accessible via the web site: https://www.3gpp.org/specifications/specification-numbering. The telecom management specifications and reports are captured in 3GPP 28 series and 32 series.
