The advent of 5G and Beyond 5G networks has propelled the development of innovative applications and services that harness network programmability, data from management and control interfaces, and the capabilities of network slicing. However, ensuring these applications function as intended and effectively utilize 5G/B5G capabilities remains a challenge, mainly due to their reliance on complex interactions with control plane Network Functions. This work addresses this issue by proposing a novel architecture to enhance the onboarding, orchestration, and validation of 5G/B5G-capable applications and services, while enabling the creation of application-tailored network slices. By integrating DevOps principles into the NFV ecosystem, the proposed architecture automates workflows for deployment, testing, and validation, while adhering to standardized onboarding models and continuous integration practices. Furthermore, we also address the realization of such architecture into a platform that supports extensive testing across multiple dimensions, including 5G readiness, security, performance, scalability, and availability. Besides introducing such a platform, this work also demonstrates its feasibility through the orchestration and validation of an automotive application that manages virtual On-Board Units within a 5G-enabled environment. The obtained results underscore the effectiveness of the proposed architecture, as well as the performance and scalability of the platform that materializes it. By integrating DevOps principles, our work aids in reducing deployment complexity, automating testing and validation, and enhancing the reliability of next-generation Network Applications, therefore accelerating their time-to-market.

This paper proposes a 5G network data space targeting the collection, storing, and sharing of metrics generated by 5G infrastructure, such as latency, throughput, and network slice performance, for universal access by applications. The primary challenge is standardizing these metrics across commercial vendors (e.g., Nokia, Ericsson, Huawei, Samsung) and open-source implementations to ensure interoperability in a decentralized ecosystem. Current approaches, such as NWDAF, O-RAN, and Gaia-X, face this interoperability challenge but remain limited in scope. We present a vendor-agnostic framework that supports multiple metric-gathering methods, including standardized mechanisms, and proprietary telemetry protocols, to enable cooperative data collection The paper includes a detailed architecture which is organized into four layers—Data Collection, Standardization, Data Management, and Application Interface, providing solutions to vendor heterogeneity, fostering scalable, secure, and interoperable data sharing for advanced applications and services. This work is a conceptual and architectural foundation, that outlines the main directions for such a future 5G Dataspace, with validation and prototyping left to subsequent research.

5G networks, and their future iterations like 6G, are vital for the EU's digital transformation and global competitiveness. Given their role in connecting EU systems and critical infrastructures, addressing security, privacy, and trust challenges is crucial. Securing these networks requires high-quality technical solutions and operational collaboration among stakeholders. SAND5G research project that is funded by Digital Europe Programme (DIGITAL) under the Cybersecurity and Trust (DIGITAL-ECCC-2022-CYBER-03) call, aims to deliver a risk assessment platform to help 5G stakeholders secure their systems, enable national authorities to oversee security measures, and align with European cybersecurity policies and proposed EU toolbox for 5G security.

Edge Cloud is providing unprecedented opportunities for IoT and WAMS (Wide Area Monitoring Systems) in electrical grid operation. It is an orchestrated environment able to address low latency events through appropriate edge-cloud computing configurations. Transient State Estimation (TSE) is a key monitoring tool for capturing a reliable knowledge of the Smart Grid status in real-time, given the impediments introduced by the increasing penetration of Distributed Energy Resources in the energy mix. Frequency response anomalies, large scale transients, and voltage swings can be captured by TSE for real time or post failure data analytics. This work presents a cloud edge framework for the efficient calculation of TSE which, albeit its benefits, demands high computational resources at the edge (close to the measurement units) along with ultra low latency communications. The framework enables TSE as a service through the coordination of Virtual Machines (VMs) running on virtualized infrastructure and other non-virtualized physical nodes. In order to support the stringent time requirements, part of the TSE is offloaded to dedicated hardware acceleration units (FPGA). The proposed TSE framework is validated using an IEEE 30-bus, and the results show a significant superiority in terms of total latency compared to conventional cloud and edge deployments.

The fifth generation (5G) of mobile networks emerged to cover the demand for an increasingly wide range of industrial use cases and contemporary daily aspects, in general. Network slicing is projected as a key enabler for serving this multitude of tenants. Network slicing, as an ongoing standardization work, encapsulates the different vision and terminology across Standards Development Organizations (SDOs). That note is depicted in several existing approaches, but the extensive introduction of customizations severely undermines interoperability. On the other hand, this work leverages Openslice, a Service based, opensource Operation Support System (OSS), and aims to augment its functionality by proposing a fully standardized network slicing mechanism, combining contributions from major SDOs.

Remote labs and online experimentation offer a rich opportunity to learners by allowing them to control real equipment at distance in order to conduct scientific investigations. Remote labs and online experimentation build on top of numerous emerging technologies for supporting remote experiments and promoting the immersion of the learner in online environments recreating the real experience. This paper presents a methodology for the design, delivery and evaluation of learning resources for remote experimentation. This methodology has been developed in the context of the European project FORGE, which promotes online learning using Future Internet Research and Experimentation (FIRE) facilities. FORGE is a step towards turning FIRE into a pan-European educational platform for Future Internet. This will benefit learners and educators by giving them both access to world-class facilities in order to carry out experiments on e.g. new internet protocols. In turn, this supports constructivist and self-regulated learning approaches, through the use of interactive learning resources, such as eBooks.

In this paper we present an approach towards empowering online telecommunications engineering education by enabling hands-on remote experimentation over Trinity College Dublin's wireless testbed. Moreover, in order to offer a flexible testbed, capable of fulfilling the different and particular requirements of experimenters, we have created a framework that allows the virtualization of our testbed resources to create experimentation units to be used by remote experimenters/learners. Furthermore, we present the FORGEBox framework that offers an environment and resources to create online material capable to access the virtualized and physical testbed resources for incorporating experimentation into HTML-based online educational material.

This paper presents the Forging Online Education through FIRE (FORGE) initiative, which aims to transform the Future Internet Research and Experimentation (FIRE) testbed facilities, already vital for European research, into a learning resource for higher education. From an educational perspective this project aims at promoting the notion of Self-Regulated Learning (SRL) through the use of a federation of highperformance testbeds and at building unique learning paths based on the integration of a rich linked-data ontology. Through FORGE, traditional online courses will be complemented with interactive laboratory courses. It will also allow educators to efficiently create, use and re-use FIRE-based learning experiences through our tools and techniques. And, most importantly, FORGE will enable equity of access to the latest ICT systems and tools independent of location and at low cost, strengthening the culture of online experimentation tools and remote facilities.

Federation scenarios for experimentally driven research usually involve resources offered by a diverse pool of organizations. Federation can be done by a resource broker, which has no resources of its own. Instead the broker matches customer's requested services and providers resources based on the SLA required by the end-user. The end-user has no knowledge that the broker does not control the resources. This work considers the concepts of modeling and meta-modeling to define a resource broker and to specify federation scenarios by applying the Domain Specific Modeling (DSM) paradigm. Moreover, we acknowledge the fact that resource models already exist and we adopt model to model transformations. We argue that defining a resource broker meta-model, focusing on the federation domain and applying DSM practices is necessary in order to: i) create formal description of a resource broker and its resource providers with its offered services and resources, ii) have valid, comprehensible and unambiguous configurations that support federation scenarios, iii) simplify the combination of services and resources from third parties that are non-conformant to the meta-model and iv) have common definitions and understanding by the resource federation domain, thus being efficient and practicable. We present a family of Domain Specific Languages (DSLs) having the meta-model as their abstract syntax, for defining model entities, describing a resource broker and federation scenarios between organizations. Additionally, prototype tooling supports the DSLs and the proposed framework.

IETF's new Forwarding and Control Element Separation (ForCES) architecture specifies the ForCES model providing an accurate description of the Forwarding Plane in an Object-Oriented fashion. However, the model is described totally in an XML Schema Definition (XSD): it is well-defined but purely machine oriented, being readable and usable, thus not human-friendly and difficult extending itself in the future. We argue that the ForCES model is actually a meta-model that is used to model ForCES components, e.g. Logical Function Blocks (LFBs), that later are used in ForCES applications. This paper presents a methodology based on a case study on how to automate the process of configuring the forwarding plane of network devices using state-of-the-art model-driven techniques in a tangible way while specifying a tool supported by a Domain Specific Language (DSL) for ForCES. We first consider describing the ForCES XSD based meta-model to a more manageable Ecore (MOF) based meta-model and then we create a DSL based on this Ecore meta-model. Then we target to transform automatically a Platform Independent ForCES model specified in the DSL to an executable target source code (Platform Specific: XML-ForCES compliant, C++, Java) able to communicate with the ForCES protocol.

Future Internet research investigates mechanisms for providing access to information and communication technology infrastructures and resources beyond boundaries of single administrative domains, thus enabling sustainable, cost-effective, energy efficient solutions. This paper discusses how Federation Computing, a paradigm shift and a pragmatic approach for the Future Internet, can ease the description and operation of required heterogeneous resources and infrastructures for a new richer infrastructure. The Panlab's Federation Mechanisms are used as a case-study where we apply Federation Computing concepts by exploiting Panlab's mechanisms and architectural elements.

The function block (FB) concept, which is used in the field of control applications for years, is now enhanced by the evolving IEC 61499 standard to support the development of modular, re-usable, open, and vendor-independent distributed control applications. The Unified Modeling Language (UML) on the other hand is the industry standard for modeling software systems. This paper presents an approach that integrates the FB concept with the UML notation in order to simplify and strengthen the development process of distributed control applications. Use cases are used to capture the requirements of the specific control application. UML models are next used to capture the static and dynamics of the system. A set of transformation rules enhances the transition from UML diagrams to FB design diagrams. CORFU, an IEC-compliant engineering tool, supports the whole process.