NIRVANA:iNtellIgent, heteRogeneous VirtuAlised Networking infrAstructure

The Internet is expanding towards mobile wireless connectivity rapidly. However, to enable this for increasing numbers of users and connected devices, and increasingly bandwidth-, processing power- and energy-hungry applications, will require a transformation in the way in which current mobile and wireless networks perform. Shorter wireless distances (small cells, picocells, femtocells) and different network types for the connection (WiFi, 3G, 4G, 5G) depending on the availability and suitability for different applications, is a process that is already happening and expected to continue. This will manifest itself with simpler remote radio heads providing coverage in otherwise difficult to penetrate locations (and the main processing functions gathered together in a centralised pool of base station baseband units), and with the appearance of new wireless standards. NIRVANA takes this evolution and proposes a transformative step: the incorporation of fast, hardware-based, network monitoring, and intelligence (using the monitoring/gathered information) close to the pool of base stations. The proximity of the intelligence enables low-overhead control of a range of operational functions, which allow users to be moved from one connection type to another, according to their application and the load on the network, and to match the network's resources precisely to user needs. It allows energy efficiency to be optimised throughout the network and in the mobile device, too. The latter is augmented by locating the computing resources for a "mobile cloud" near the base station pool. Some processing is offloaded to the mobile cloud instead of being done on the mobile, and even some mobile-to- mobile communication may be done within this cloud - saving the mobile device (and the network) energy that would have been used in radio transmissions. Finally, among the new wireless connection types to be investigated, millimetre-wave communications, using the most up-to-date releases of the wireless local area network standard (802.11ad/j), will be fashioned into a device-to-device mesh network, for mobile distributed caching, which will be shown to further enhance the capacity of the network and its energy efficiency.

NIRVANA offers a paradigm shift for the future mobile Internet by combining network intelligence acquisition with state-of- the-art data throughputs. This will have general societal and economic impact as people gain improved access wherever they are. Any geographic area/locale where large numbers of people or vehicles interact, including hospitals, campuses, factories, sporting events, may in the future use mesh networks and will have complex requirements for data transfer, handover and caching. The context and content-aware data harvesting that is envisaged will be relevant for security conscious application as well as strategic meta-networking for future societal needs. The resilience of the highly heterogeneous networking will benefit emergency services in disaster recovery.

NIRVANA's industry project partners are able to exploit progress made and are highly interested in the project. For EE, as with other mobile operators, there is a need to maximize the interaction between new mesh networks, local area wireless networking, and the fixed infrastructure. Maximising customers' satisfaction level (including offering new services while not reducing mobile battery lifetimes) and minimizing costs and energy consumption are clear drivers. BT as a global telecommunications service provider has interests in technologies such as mobile device virtualisation that will provide clear benefits to its customers as well as to its network functionalization and management systems.

JDSU is interested in extending the use of its network management and monitoring tools into future mobile networks, and NIRVANA provides JDSU with a clear direction on the possibilities that are open. Qualcomm has a keen interest in the interaction of D2D communications and the mobile infrastructure, which will be important for its future chipsets and system software. NEC is heavily involved with communications network technology development, has particular interests in the technology for C-RAN, and is very involved with important standardisation bodies. Techgate is a cloud services provider with significant interest in the cloud computing and networking aspects of the project. All partners will take an active role in the definition of use case scenarios and exploitation paths. The extensive depth and diversity of the various NIRVANA industry partners will particularly aid dissemination of the ideas in a way which can make maximum impact on the telecommunications sector in the UK, a sector which includes large numbers of smaller businesses and emerging industries.

Both universities will incorporate news of latest developments in the work undertaken in their outreach activities to inspire the next generation of researchers and better inform the public. The work will also provide a firm foundation for the consortium to leverage further funds via EU HORIZON 2020. This will enable full system development, bringing in EU companies and broadening the research to include other large-data users and management specialists.

In summary, NIRVANA is timely because it captures the current operator debate on small cells, femtocells, distributed base stations and cloud-radio access networks (C-RANs). It is a debate heavily influenced by user population densities and the availability or willingness to deploy a fibre infrastructure. NIRVANA innovates additionally by including network intelligence close to the base station pool, enabling sophisticated operational and service layer functionalities not previously envisaged. These will have enormous future societal and economic impact as the mobile Internet becomes a foundation for future national prosperity.