SDN/NFV Solutions Enable Digital Transformation

In November 2019, the General Office of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology issued the "5G+ Industrial Internet" 512 Project Promotion Solution, which promoted the integration, innovation, and development of "5G+ Industrial Internet". Over the past two years, with the joint efforts of all industry parties, the "5G+ Industrial Internet" project under construction, which has covered over 20 important industries of national economy, plays an important role in the transformation and upgrade process of real economy. 5G+ industrial Internet requirements  At present, China has built the world's largest commercial 5G network, and the construction of China's Internet and industrial Internet has entered the fast lane. For various differentiated industrial scenarios, the traditional ToC-oriented public network core network cannot meet the diverse requirements of the industry for 5G. Deterministic network (TSN): The traditional ToC network can only try its best, and cannot guarantee latency or jitter. The TSN network is used to solve network latency and jitter and ensure the network quality of the industrial Internet. With the development and large-scale application of the TSN technology, 5G TSN is in increasing demand. 5G LAN: In the current industrial network, the equipment is confronted with such problems as limited cable mobility, high cost of optical fiber laying, poor Wi-Fi coverage security, poor mobility, and support for only Layer-2 access. In addition, the link configurability is poor, and the application mode is not flexible. These problems hinder the scale and flexibility of the enterprise wireless private network. 5G LAN is extensively used in the industry. Ultra-low latency and ultra-high reliability (URLLC): For some special scenarios, such as automatic driving, remote control, telemedicine and VR/AR, it is required to achieve "close coordination" and "collision-free operation” between these intelligent devices. In this case, wireless, low latency and high reliability should be used for real-time data exchange to greatly improve efficiency and secure operation.  ZTE industrial Internet solution In various scenarios such as intelligent manufacturing, mining, power, iron and steel, metallurgy, port and transportation, all industries have their own pain points and difficulties. Differentiated requirements promote the customized development of ToB core network. Since 2022, ZTE's private network has been committed to deeply integrating into core services of the industry. For intelligent manufacturing, ZTE’s private network provides an ultra-reliable and ultra-low latency deterministic network, and combines URLLC with TSN to ensure the highly reliable operation of various equipment in the manufacturing industry. At the same time, the URLLC technology and TSN's deterministic network are used to ensure the real-time transmission of data in the network. For the mine industry, ZTE’s private network provides the 4G/5G integrated private network, and provides the data interworking and 4G/5G network interworking above and beneath the well, and runs independently. At the same time, ZTE’s private network provides the voice function to implement the voice interworking above and beneath the well, and can interconnect with the third-party voice dispatching system. For the power industry, ZTE's private network provides differentiated networks to meet service requirements in different scenarios. For the DTU differential protection scenario, the private network provides the TSN service to ensure the real-time arrival of periodic detection packets. For the electric power detection scenario, the private network provides the multicast communication service to save the uplink bandwidth. For the field scenario, the 5G LAN service is provided to save the cost of optical cable laying. For other scenarios, ZTE’s private network also provides different solutions based on the pain points and difficulties of different industries. To serve and integrate into the industry is the way for ZTE 5G to empower thousands of industries. ZTE private network O&M To meet the network maintenance requirements of industry customers, ZTE has launched a variety of powerful O&M tools. In the industrial Internet, the users are more concerned about the running status and running indexes of the terminals. To meet the requirements of these customers, ZTE’s private network has launched the enterprise O&M portal iDOS system to interconnect with the self-owned system of the enterprise. It can display the KQI (key quality indexes) while displaying the KPIs, so that the users can truly understand the running status of their own equipment and networks, and realize self-O&M and self-management. ZTE 5G industrial Internet collaboration practice  ZTE is actively working with various industries to promote industry leaders to build the high-technology and high-5G industrial Internet. In Nanjing, ZTE's Binjiang Factory uses 5G to manufacture 5G, and connects workshop production equipment parameters to the industrial Internet platform through 5G networks. In the production scheduling phase, end-to-end visualization, low latency, and intelligence are achieved. Intelligent warehousing and distribution of raw materials are achieved after they are warehoused and delivered to finished products. Production workshops achieve automatic production status perception, automatic collection of production data, and real-time analysis of product data. In Shenzhen, SANY and ZTE signed a strategic cooperation agreement. Taking SANY Industrial Parks (in Beijing and Changsha) as pilots, ZTE carried out demonstration construction of 5G networks and 5G services to explore 5G-based service application scenarios. In terms of 5G AR, 5G real-time industrial control, 5G cloud AGV, 5G remote control and unmanned driving, 5G high-precision positioning and unprotected security in the 5G park, both parties will work together to speed up the implementation of the industrial 5G model. In Zhejiang, ZTE and China Telecom Zhejiang Branch assisted Supcon in commissioning China’s first 5G SA site, and successfully put "5G slicing + edge computing + intelligent manufacturing" into trial commercial use in Zhejiang, helping the enterprise build a new 5G smart factory. ZTE innovatively developed the integrated solution of "5G slicing + edge computing + intelligent manufacturing". The video stream guaranteed by slicing reduces the latency, jitter, and packet loss rate of video data transmission, guarantees the bandwidth and quality of video transmission, and improves the accuracy and real-time performance of video analysis results. The Action Plan for Industrial Internet Innovation and Development (2021-2023) puts forward the 5G+ industrial Internet goal, which plans to build 30 5G full-connection factories in 10 key industries by 2023. ZTE has launched a good action plan for building 30 5G full connectivity factories in China. ZTE believes that, with the joint efforts of the entire industry chain, 5G fully connected factories will be widely constructed across the country in the next three years, to promote industrial Internet innovation in China to a new phase of development.  

In September 2016, Baosteel Group Co., Ltd and Wuhan Iron and Steel (Group) Co., Ltd were reorganized jointly. The combined Baowu Group Co., Ltd. is the most modern and competitive iron and steel joint enterprise in China, and a super large modern iron and steel joint enterprise in the world. Baowu Group continues to promote intelligent manufacturing and digitalization transformation, and proposes four evaluation criteria for intelligent manufacturing of iron and steel processes: Centralization of on-site operation rooms, use robots for all operation positions, remote O&M monitoring, and on-line service procedures. Under a unified industrial Internet architecture, Baowu Group is committed to promoting integration of cross-industry, cross-space, and cross-man-machine interfaces.  The existing information system of Wuhan Iron and Steel Co., Ltd. (Hereinafter referred to as "Wuhan Steel Co., Ltd") is built in a chimney, and the communication between systems is poor. The existing communication networks do not have sufficient coverage, and the capacity is not flexible enough to meet the requirements of smart manufacturing. To meet the requirements of  four evaluation criteria and "three-cross integration," Wuhan Steel Co., Ltd introduces the 5G private network technology to take advantages of the 5G network, such as low latency, large bandwidth, and wide connections to achieve digital transformation. In the first half year of 2021, Hubei Unicom jointly built the 5G private network project of Wuhan Steel Co., Ltd with ZTE and CISDI. According to the requirements for the intelligent manufacturing business and the characteristics of the iron and steel industry, Hubei Unicom selected the construction mode of the independent private network to build the largest private 5G network in China (see Figure 1).  Figure 1 Private 5G Industry Network Architecture Of Wugang The private 5G network of Wuhan Steel Co., Ltd is exclusively provided by ZTE. The whole core network is offloaded and the complete set of 5GC NEs are deployed in the communication equipment room of the factory , and provide 5G data service for private network users (using private network cards), and support value-added private network voice/SMS services as needed. Based on the NFV virtualization architecture, the 5G private network adopts the general X86 server and networking according to CT resource pool standard, with separation of control/computing/storage, so as to meet the service development requirements through hardware expansion and software upgrade. The 5G private network of Wuhan Steel Co., Ltd adopts the mature 3GPP R15 specifications of the industry, provides good terminal and network compatibility, and supports the continuous evolution to the latest R16/R17 protocol version. Through software upgrade, the 5G private network supports such innovative features as 5G LAN, QoS Monitoring and TSN, and continuously empowers smart manufacturing. A total of 51 5G macro stations have been set up and commissioned in the 5G private network. The coverage rate of outdoor test of 5G network reaches 99.02%, the average downlink throughput reaches 800.59Mpbs, and the average uplink throughput reaches 150.78Mbps.  The entire network is independently operated by Wuhan Steel Co., Ltd, and all security policy rights are fully controlled, achieving the highest security level and control management. The 5G private network keeps very high independence from the public network on the physical transmission layer. There is no need to backhaul the data and signaling flows in the campus to the public network. The campus network is totally isolated from the public network, guaranteeing data security in the campus. Wuhan Steel Co., Ltd is the first to implement the smart manufacturing concept of"ALL IN ONE" . It has built the management and control center and four major operation centers for iron making, steel making, CSP and hot rolling, and centralizes the operation room far away from the site and implement functions such as data integration, real-time collection, "one-click steel making" and "smart transportation." With the gradual maturity of the terminal products of the R16 standard and the development of various innovative technologies such as 5G LAN, TSN, digital twin and XR, various applications will also be put into use in a large scale.  The "Baosteel 5G+ full-connection factory's innovative application and practice" project jointly created by Hubei Unicom, Wuhan Steel Co., Ltd, ZTE and CISDI won the First Prize of the 4th “Bloom Cup”5G Application Competition. ZTE shall work with Wuhan Steel Co., Ltd and Hubei Unicom to keep exploring 5G+ industrial Internet technologies and  5G practices+ innovative applications, comprehensively assisting the digitalization and intelligent transformation of the iron and steel industry.