5G Architecture
• Feature Summary and Revision History, on page 1
• Overview, on page 2
• Subscriber Microservices Infrastructure Architecture, on page 3
• Control Plane Network Function Architecture, on page 4
Feature Summary and Revision History
Summary Data
Table 1: Summary Data
Applicable Product(s) or Functional Area • PCF
• SMF
• UPF
Applicable Platform(s) SMI
Feature Default Setting Not Applicable
Related Documentation Not Applicable
Revision History
Table 2: Revision History
Revision Details Release
First introduced. Pre-2020.02.0
5G Architecture
1
5G Architecture
Overview
Overview
The Ultra Cloud Core is Cisco's solution supporting 3GPP's standards for 5G new radio (NR) standalone (SA)
mode. These standards define various network functions (NFs) based on the separation of control plane (CP)
and user plane (UP) (for example CUPS) functionality for increased network performance and capabilities.
Control Plane Network Functions
The CP-related NFs that comprise the Ultra Cloud Core are based on a common architecture that is designed
around the following tenants:
• Cloud-scale—Fully virtualized for simplicity, speed, and flexibility.
• Automation and orchestration—Optimized operations, service creation, and infrastructure.
• Security—Multiple layers of security across the deployment stack from the infrastructure through the
NF applications.
• API exposure—Open and extensive for greater visibility, control, and service enablement.
• Access agnostic—Support for heterogeneous network types (for example 5G, 4G, 3G, Wi-Fi, and so on).
These control plane NFs are each designed as containerized applications (for example microservices) for
deployment through the Subscriber Microservices Infrastructure (SMI).
The SMI defines the common application layers for functional aspects of the NF such as life-cycle management
(LCM), operations and management (OAM), and packaging.
Figure 1: Ultra Cloud Core CP Architectural Components
User Plane Network Function
The 5G UP NF within the Ultra Cloud Core is the User Plane Function (UPF). Unlike the CP-related NFs,
the 5G UPF leverages the same Vector Packet Processing (VPP) technology currently in use by the user plane
5G Architecture
2
5G Architecture
Subscriber Microservices Infrastructure Architecture
component within Cisco 4G CUPS architecture. This commonality ensures the delivery of a consistent set of
capabilities between 4G and 5G such as:
• Ultrafast packet forwarding.
• Extensive integrated IP Services such as Subscriber Firewall, Tethering, Deep-Packet Inspection (DPI),
Internet Content Adaption Protocol (ICAP), Application Detection and Control (ADC), and header
enrichment (HE).
• Integrated third-party applications for traffic and TCP optimization.
Subscriber Microservices Infrastructure Architecture
The Ultra Cloud Core (UCC) Subscriber Microservices Infrastructure (SMI) is a layered stack of cloud
technologies that enable the rapid deployment of, and seamless life-cycle operations for microservices-based
applications.
The SMI stack consists of the following:
• SMI Cluster Manager—Creates the Kubernetes (K8s) cluster, creates the software repository, and provides
ongoing LCM for the cluster including deployment, upgrades, and expansion.
• Kubernetes Management—Includes the K8s primary and etcd functions, which provide LCM for the NF
applications that are deployed in the cluster. This component also provides cluster health monitoring and
resources scheduling.
• Common Execution Environment (CEE)—Provides common utilities and OAM functionalities for Cisco
Cloud native NFs and applications, including licensing and entitlement functions, configuration
management, telemetry and alarm visualization, logging management, and troubleshooting utilities. Also,
it provides consistent interaction and experience for all customer touch points and integration points in
relation to these tools and deployed applications.
• Common Data Layer (CDL)—Provides a high performance, low latency, stateful data store, designed
specifically for 5G and subscriber applications. This next generation data store offers high availability
in local or geo-redundant deployments.
• Service Mesh—Provides sophisticated message routing between application containers, enabling managed
interconnectivity, extra security, and the ability to deploy new code and new configurations in low risk
manner.
• NB Streaming—Provides Northbound Data Streaming service for billing and charging systems.
• NF or Application Worker Nodes—The containers that comprise an NF application pod.
• NF or Application Endpoints (EPs)—The NFs or applications and their interfaces to other entities on the
network
• Application Programming Interfaces (APIs)—Provides various APIs for deployment, configuration, and
management automation.
The following figure depicts how these components interconnect to comprise a microservice-based NF or
application.
5G Architecture
3
5G Architecture
Control Plane Network Function Architecture
Figure 2: SMI Components
For more information on SMI components, see Ultra Cloud Core Subscriber Microservices Infrastructure and
the related-documentation at Deployment Guide > Overview chapter.
Control Plane Network Function Architecture
Control plane (CP) NFs are designed around a three-tiered architecture that take advantage of the stateful or
stateless capabilities that are afforded within cloud native environments.
The architectural tiers are as follows:
• Protocol Load Balancer Services—These are stateless microservices that are primarily responsible for
dynamic discovery of application containers as well as for protocol proxy and termination. These include
traditional 3GPP protocols and new protocols that are introduced with 5G.
• Applications Services—Responsible for implementing the core application or business logic, these are
the stateless services that render the actual application based on the received information. This layer may
contain varying degrees of microservice granularity. Application services are stateless.
• State management services—Enable stateless application services by providing a common data layer
(CDL) to store or cache state information (for example session and subscriber data). This layer supports
various data storage technologies from in-memory caches to full-fledge databases.
5G Architecture
4
5G Architecture
Control Plane Network Function Architecture
Figure 3: Control Plan Network Function Tiered Architecture
The three-tiered architecture on which Cisco CP NFs are designed fully support the 5G core (5GC)
Service-based Architecture (SBA) defined by 3GPP. These NFs communicate with each other and with
third-party NFs over the Service-based Interface (SBI) using HTTP/2 over TCP as defined by 3GPP.
5G Architecture
5
5G Architecture
Control Plane Network Function Architecture
Figure 4: Cisco CP NF Service-based Architecture Support
For more information on the Cisco network functions, see their corresponding network function documentation.
5G Architecture
6
