VIBeS (Implementation of Virtualized Network Functions (VNFs) project is program financed ESA-ARTES Advanced Technology, in which NITEL Consortium – research unit “Tor Vergata” – is the prime contractor. The subcontractors are: the CINI Consortium (skilled in security and in virtualization techniques based on containers), the University of Padova (skilled in manage and orchestration platforms of elements of virtualized network) and Athonet (enterprice that developed 5G technologies).
The VIBES project aims at developing a test bed, which will be useful to validate 5G use-cases, where satellite either complements or replace the default terrestrial backhaul. On the other hand, VIBeS pursues the integration of the satellite specific VNFs, grouped as a virtual PEP (vPEP) application, with a 5G-ready Core Network (CN) in order to demonstrate the deployment of a 5G end-to-end service “slice” including satellite resources.
In addition, vPEP solution foresees technology solutions tailored to optimize performance of the most common TCP/IP applications (i.e. Web browsing, M2M, Web streaming) as well as to enable cutting-edge satellite-based services, such as capacity bonding, dynamic and seamless flow migration and caching. Definitively, vPEP will allow to enable a satellite component as the advanced application when useful to fulfil specific service requirements.
The status of the project is concluded with the validation and performance testing of the solutions identified. The test bed is ready, operational and it can be used to validate 5G architectures and solutions. The next 12 months period the testbed will be online and at ESA disposal. The figure shows the test bed architecture.