4G/5G Core Network NF Mapping
Here was tried to classify NFs according to their functionality into 3 following categories:
- DM (Data Management)
- CP (Control Plane)
- UP (User Plane)
DM comprises the list of NFs which are in charge of keeping the data related to the authentication and slicing information of users. CP comprises the list of NFs which are in charge of doing the process of authenticating the users and establishing the services in UP based on the service users asked. UP comprises the list of NFs which are in charge of providing the requested service of the users based on their slicing information received from DM.
The below table shows that which NFs of which vendors are classified in which category.
| DM | CP | UP |
|---|---|---|
| o5gs-db / oai-db | o5gs-amf / oai-amf | o5gs-upf / oai-upf-vpp |
| o5gs-hss / oai-hss | o5gs-ausf / oai-ausf | o5gs-sgwu / oai-spgwu-tiny |
| o5gs-udr / oai-udr | o5gs-nrf / oai-nrf | |
| o5gs-udm / oai-udm | o5gs-nssf / oai-nssf | |
| o5gs-pcf / oai-pcf | o5gs-smf / oai-smf | |
| o5gs-pcrf / - | o5gs-sgwc / oai-spgwc | |
| 05gs-bsf / - | o5gs-mme / oai-mme | |
| - / oai-nef |
Because amari-cn is an all-in-one core network, it can't be classified in the above table.
Proposal way of creating snaps based on the above-mentioned mapping
First way: creating an all-in-one snap by accessing to the classification (DM, CP, and UP) via exposing them as App
Here all the NFs will be placed in one snap, and a user can run each mapping they want via the following commands (as always, the order of running commands is important)
sudo snap start oai-cn.dm
sudo snap start oai-cn.cp
sudo snap start oai-cn.up
In addition to that, a user can also run the whole Core Network by running one command:
sudo snap start oai-cn
However, in this case, we can expose each NF as App so that a user can run them alone by running the following command, but it is considered that if any NF is exposed via App, the list of App would be long.
sudo snap start oai-cn.amf
RAN Mapping
The below table shows the category we can have for RANs of the different vendors. Each of them has 4G and 5G inside itself.
| oai-ran | srs-ran | amari-ran |
|---|---|---|
| gnb / end | gnb / enb | gnb / enb |