About the Book
A guide to planning, designing and deploying 5G networks As 5G transforms mobile usage and services, network professionals will need to significantly evolve their transport network architectures towards greater sophistication and stronger integration with radio networks, and facilitate transition towards cloud-native 5G mobile core. Until now, however, most 5G guides have foregrounded RF/radio and mobile core innovations, not its implications for data networks. A Network Architect's Guide to 5G fills the gap, giving network architects, designers, and engineers essential knowledge for designing and planning their own 5G networks.
Drawing on decades of experience with global service providers and enterprise networks, the authors illuminate new and evolving network technologies necessary for building 5G-capable networks, such as segment routing, network slicing, timing and synchronization, edge computing, distributed data centers, integration with public cloud, and more. They explain how 5G blurs boundaries between mobile core, radio access, and transport, as well as the changes in the composition of a traditional cell site with the adoption of Open and Virtualized RAN resulting in a transition to mobile xHaul. Every chapter builds on earlier coverage, culminating in a 'big picture' presentation of a complete 5G network design.
Understand the evolution of mobile technologies over the generation leading to 5G's foundational concepts and principles.
Explore 5G changes to Radio Access Networks (RAN), the Mobile Core, Mobile Transport, and the need for tighter integration between them.
Use Segment Routing to architect simplified, SDN-capable networks, and enable network slicing for 5G.
Rethink transport design to incorporate Far-Edge, Edge, and public-cloud based data centers augmenting centralised DCs to support distributed peering and Multi-access Edge Compute.
Provide guidance to meet the criteria and requirements for various aspects of Fronthaul, Midhaul, and Backhaul architecture, such as transport protocol evaluation, latency consideration, routing design, QoS modeling, network device selection, and more.
Forge a cohesive 5G network architecture by combining mobile communications principles with advanced transport technologies.
Table of Contents:
Introduction xx
Chapter 1: A Peek at the Past 2
Brief History of Pre-Cellular Mobile Networks. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
The Very First Cellular Networks: 1G.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
Second Generation (2G) Cellular Networks. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
Generation Two and a Half (2.5G). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
Enhanced Data Rates for GSM Evolution (EDGE). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
Third Generation (3G).. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
Summary.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27
References.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27
Chapter 2: Anatomy of Mobile Communication Networks 28
Understanding Radio Access Network.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28
Mobile Transport and Backhaul.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41
Mobile Core Concepts.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51
Summary.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73
References.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73
Chapter 3: Mobile Networks Today 76
3GPP Releases and Evolved Packet System.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77
Evolved Packet Core (EPC) Architecture.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 79
RAN Evolution.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 89
Modern Mobile Backhaul Networks. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 102
Summary.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 116
References.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 117
Chapter 4: The Promise of 5G 120
Emerging Trends and Expectations from Mobile Networks.. . . . . . . . . . 121
5G Technology Enablers.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 126
5G Service Offerings.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 131
Summary.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 134
References.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 135
Chapter 5: 5G Fundamentals 138
5G Radio Access Network.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 138
5G Core Network.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 179
5G Transport Network.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 195
Summary.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 203
References.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 205
Chapter 6: Emerging Technologies for 5G-Ready Networks: Segment Routing 212
Complexity in Today's Network.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 212
Introducing Segment Routing. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 214
Segment Routing Traffic Engineering (SR-TE). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 222
Software-Defined Transport with Segment Routing.. . . . . . . . . . . . . 228
5G Transport Network Slicing. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 232
Redundancy and High Availability with Segment Routing.. . . . . . . . . . . 238
Segment Routing for IPv6 (SRv6). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 242
Summary.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 247
References.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 248
Chapter 7: Essential Technologies for 5G-Ready Networks:
DC Architecture and Edge Computing 250
Data Center Basics.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 250
From Centralized to Distributed to Cloud Data Centers. . . . . . . . . . . . 257
Deploying Data Centers.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 260
Optimizing Compute Resources. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 267
Summary.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 271
References.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 272
Chapter 8: Essential Technologies for 5G-Ready Networks: Transport Services 274
What's a 5G Transport Service?.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 274
VPN Services.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 275
Transport Services Across MCN. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 297
Summary.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 299
References.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 300
Chapter 9: Essential Technologies for 5G-Ready Networks: Timing and Synchronization 302
Types of Synchronization.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 304
Why Synchronization Is Important in 5G.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 306
Synchronization Sources and Clock Types.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 308
Implementing Timing in Mobile Networks.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 311
Summary.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 331
References.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 332
Chapter 10: Designing and Implementing 5G Network Architecture 334
5G Architecture Recap.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 334
5G Fronthaul Considerations.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 336
xHaul Transport Technology Choices. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 345
Designing the Mobile Transport Network. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 346
Routing Design Simplification. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 361
Transport Services for 5G MCN.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 370
Taking MCN to the Cloud.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 372
Automation in 5G Networks.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 376
Deciphering 5G Mobile Requirements.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 380
Summary.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 383
References.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 384
Afterword: Beyond 5G 386
9780137376841, TOC, 4/14/2022
About the Author :
Syed Farrukh Hassan has been designing and deploying networks for over 20 years. In his current role as principal telecommunications architect at Red Hat, Syed provides consultancy services to global 5G customers. Prior to that, Syed worked as a senior solutions architect in the Cisco professional and consulting services organisation, providing guidance, strategy, and planning support to various Internet, cloud, and mobile service providers in their adoption of innovating networking technologies and transformation of their networks to new architectures. Syed co-authored one of the first books on NFV and SDN, has been a regular speaker in public forums and conferences, and is recognised as a Cisco Live Distinguished Speaker. Syed is a double CCIE in Service Provider and Data Center technologies (#21617), Google Certified Professional Cloud Networking Engineer, and Certified Kubernetes Administrator (CKA).
Alexander Orel has more than 20 years of experience in designing, deploying, and supporting largescale transport networks for major Internet and mobile service providers. He has worked as a lead network engineer and senior network designer in various system integration companies and Internet service providers. Alexander spent a significant part of his career as a solutions architect in the Customer Experience New Product team at Cisco Systems, where he specialised in IOS XR-based platforms, NFV technologies, Segment Routing, application-driven networks, EVPN, and other bleeding-edge technologies. Recently, Alexander joined the Global Networking team at Google, where he continues to apply and expand his knowledge of large-scale networks.
Kashif Islam is a 20+ year veteran in the IT industry and has architected several complex, large-scale networks for some of the largest wireline and mobile service providers across the world. He is currently a Principal Telecommunication Architect in Red Hat's consulting organisation and is tasked with helping service providers transform their existing mobile infrastructure into next-generation, cloud-native 5G networks. Prior to his work with Red Hat, Kashif was a senior solutions architect at Cisco Systems. During his tenure at Cisco, he devised strategies and provided technical leadership to service providers in modernising and transforming their existing mobile backhaul networks into xHaul to support Cloud RAN architectures and new 5G services. Kashif is a Distinguished Speaker at industry events such as Cisco Live, Society of Cable and Telecommunication Engineers (SCTE), and others.
