A Network Architect's Guide to 5g

THE NETWORK PROFESSIONAL’S GUIDE TO PLANNING, DESIGNING, AND DEPLOYING 5G TRANSPORT 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 centralized 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.

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 organization, 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 recognized 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). He holds a bachelor’s degree in engineering from NED University (Pakistan) and a master’s degree in engineering from the University of Florida, Gainesville (USA).

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 specialized 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. Alexander has a master’s degree in applied mathematics and physics from Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology and holds CCIE certification #10391 in R&S and DC. Alexander has been a frequent presenter at various technology conferences such as Cisco Live and Cisco Connect and was recognized as a Cisco Live Distinguished Speaker.

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 organization 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 modernizing 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. He has also co-authored Open RAN (O-RAN) Alliance’s xHaul Packet Switched Network Architecture Specification. Kashif is a double CCIE (#14300) and holds a Bachelor of Computer Engineering from Sir Syed University of Engineering and Technology in Karachi, Pakistan, as well as a Master of Engineering in Internetworking from Dalhousie University, Canada. Kashif lives in Raleigh, North Carolina, with his family and, when not working, enjoys hiking in the Blue Ridge mountains.