5G Open Innovation Lab (5G OI Lab) along with ecosystem partners F5, GXC and Spirent Communications have announced a new collaboration to showcase an enterprise Private Mobile Network (PMN) solution that not only delivers PMNs in hard-to-reach locations, but offers greater security, control, and resilience with improvements to operational costs.

F5, a hybrid and multi-cloud application services and security company, deployed carrier-grade BIG-IP Virtual Editions. These security functions were consolidated with an N6/SGi-LAN solution adding another layer of speed and security at the network level. Critical functions such as Firewall, DDoS, Secure DNS, CGNAT, TCP and Video Optimization with this consolidated N6 configuration are already running in high-volume Tier 1 providers.

GXC, a NaaS communications early-stage tech company which is part of the 5G OI Lab ecosystem, contributed their unique distributed mesh configuration for easier and faster deployment of a private network while providing full coverage and capacity of a cellular network.

This collaboration was validated using Spirent’s Landslide test and emulation platform. The multinational telecom testing company’s solution provided device and RAN emulation to create a diversity of traffic flows across multiple data networks through the 5G core which is monitored and managed by F5 behind the UPF. This delivers UE QoS, Network Slice Management, and offers multi-application monitoring at scale to validate the benefits of a packet core and N6 LAN solution working in tandem in a controlled production environment.

Finally, the entire solution was pressure-tested through technology made available through the 5G OI Lab and its enterprise and operator partners deployed with GXC’s ONYX Portal.

How the solution works:

• F5’s BIG-IP Virtual Editions will optimize these traffic flows between the 5GC and the content network helping to enable end-to-end visibility of user activity and security against unwarranted traffic ingress.
• Spirent’s Landslide AMF Nodal application will bring real-world traffic modelling into the 5G OI Lab to emulate 5G Mobile subscribers and 5G Access Nodes (gNBs) performing a realistic distribution of traffic flows across slices and DNNs towards emulated content servers supported by the core.