Committed to connecting the world

Search for:

-->

Executive summary of the SG13 meeting

SG13: Future networks, with focus on IMT-2020, cloud computing and trusted network infrastructures

Executive summary of the SG13 meeting
29 November – 10 December 2021, virtual meeting

This SG13 meeting was called up by the Collective-letter 16/13 (of 22 September 2021) and its Addendum 1 (dated 8 November 2021). It was a third fully virtual full two weeks format SG13 meeting and fifth SG13 virtual meeting since spring 2020.

The opening remarks were delivered by the TSB Director, Mr Chaesub Lee, who mentioned in particular, that this meeting had received 190 contributions that has been a top number of contributions in this study period. Director further said that this is a tradition in SG13 to get most of the contributions at the last meeting in the study period.|

This SG13 meeting attracted 243 delegates, considered 520 documents split as 190 contributions and 330 TDs. List of contributions may be found in TD409/PLEN.

TSB MyMeetings platform for remote participation was used to support each formal session at this virtual meeting resulting in 221 sessions in total.

Main meeting results

SG13 virtual meeting, 29 November – 10 December 2021

Recommendations approved (Recommendation A.8 - AAP)

ITU-T Rec. No.	Q	Base text	Status	Title
Y.3606 (Y.bDPI-Mec)	7/13	TD424/PLEN	New	Big data – Deep packet inspection mechanism for big data in network
Y.3805 (Y.QKDN_SDNC)	16/13	TD420/PLEN	New	Quantum Key Distribution Networks - Software Defined Networking Control
Y.3057 (Y.trust-index)	16/13	TD419/PLEN	New	A trust index model for ICT infrastructures and services

* On 29 October 2021 ETRI submitted the patent declaration for the Recommendation ITU-T Y.3805 “Quantum Key Distribution Networks - Software Defined Networking Control". This information was duly registered in the ITU-T Patents declaration database www.itu.int/ITU-T/ipr/.
SG13 approved the above-mentioned three Recommendations at its interim plenary on 6 December 2021.

TSB Circular 370 (dated 15 December 2021) announces the results of the approval.

Recommendations consented for Last Call (Recommendation A.8 - AAP)

ITU-T Rec. No.	Q	Base text	Status	Title
Y.3807 (Y.QKDN_QoS_pa)	6/13	TD436/PLEN	New	Quantum Key Distribution networks – QoS parameters
Y.3680 (Y.MLN-Fr)	7/13	TD443/PLEN	New	Framework of human-like networking
Y.3654 (Y.bDDN-MLMec)	7/13	TD444/PLEN	New	Big data driven networking - Machine learning mechanism
Y.3180 (Y.MecTA-ML)	7/13	TD445/PLEN	New	Mechanism of traffic awareness for application-descriptor-agnostic traffic based on machine learning
Y.3808 (Y.QKDN_frint)	16/13	TD450/PLEN	New	Framework for integration of quantum key distribution network and secure storage network
Y.3809 (Y.QKDN_BM)	16/13	TD451/PLEN	New	Quantum Key Distribution Networks - Business role-based models
Y.3505	17/13	TD434/PLEN	Revised	Cloud computing – Overview and functional requirements for data storage federation
Y.3535 (Y.cccm-reqts)	17/13	TD435/PLEN	New	Cloud Computing – Functional requirements for container
Y.3536 (Y.csb-arch)	18/13	TD446/PLEN	New	Cloud computing - Functional architecture for cloud service brokerage
Y.3528 (Y.ccfrcm)	19/13	TD447/PLEN	New	Cloud computing - Framework and requirements of container management in inter-cloud
Y.3529 (Y.ccvnf-dm)	19/13	TD448/PLEN	New	Cloud computing - Data model framework for NaaS OSS virtualized network function
Y.3114 (Y.IMT2020-LC-req-arch)	20/13	TD437/PLEN	New	Future networks including IMT-2020: requirements and functional architecture of lightweight core for dedicated networks
Y.3115 (Y.IMT2020-AIICDN-arch)	20/13	TD438/PLEN	New	AI enabled cross-domain network architectural requirements and framework for future networks including IMT-2020
Y.3116 (Y.IMT2020-mAI)	21/13	TD449-R1/PLEN	New	Traffic typization IMT-2020 management based on an artificial intelligent approach
Y.3078 (Y.ICN-DOS)	22/13	TD439/PLEN	New	Information centric networking for IMT-2020 and beyond - Requirements and capabilities of data object segmentation
Y.3090 (Y.DTN-ReqArch)	22/13	TD440/PLEN	New	Digital twin network - Requirements and architecture
Y.3200 (Y.FMSC-req)	23/13	TD441/PLEN	New	Fixed, mobile and satellite convergence - Requirements for IMT-2020 network and beyond

Per the decision of the meeting, the AAP Last Call will start on 16 January 2022 for each of the 17 consented Recommendations listed above.

Subsequent to the meeting, on 26 May 2022 ETRI submitted the patent declaration for Recommendation ITU-T Y.3536 “Cloud computing - Functional architecture for cloud service brokerage”.

Furthermore, on 17 November 2022 ETRI submitted the patent declaration for Recommendation ITU-T Y.3505 “Cloud computing – Overview and functional requirements for data storage federation”.

It was duly registered in the ITU-T Patents declaration database www.itu.int/ITU-T/ipr/.

Implementer’s Guide agreed to (Recommendation A.13)

ITU-T Doc. No.	Q	Base text	Status	Title
Implementer’s Guide (Y.110ImpGuide)	2/13	TD442/PLEN	New	Implementers' guide for Recommendation Y.110 "Global Information Infrastructure principles and framework architecture"

Important decisions (apart of Recommendations)

Human Assets

The meeting appointed as a new SG13RG-AFR Chairman Ms Rim Belhassine-Cherif (Tunisia Telecom), who took this nomination after a sudden passing away of Mr Simon Bugaba, the first and single by that day, SG13RG-AFR Chairman, who has been leading this group since 2013.

The meeting agreed to nominate Mr Xue Miao (China Unicom) as the Associate rapporteur for Q1/13 “Future Networks: Innovative Service Scenarios, including Environmental and Socio Economical Aspects".

WTSA-20 preparations
C1411 “Proposal on amendment of the Q1 Tasks" from Russian Federation proposed revision to the Q1/13 “Future Networks: Innovative Service Scenarios, including Environmental and Socio Economical Aspects" text. Q1/13 evaluated this proposal and agree to it. Minor editorial change was introduced at the SG13 plenary to the Q1/13 text that was agreed as proposed Question 1/13 text for study in the next study period (TD425-R1/PLEN). With this, SG13 finished its preparations to the WTSA-20 with

Q1/13 text as found in TD425-R1/PLEN,
All the other Questions texts (namely, 2, 5, 6, 7, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22 and 23/13) as found in TSAG Report 18 (as well as in SG13-TD291-R1/PLEN),
Proposed changes to the SG13 title, area of responsibility, lead study group roles, points of guidance and the series of ITU-T Recommendations under SG13 responsibility for the next study period as appear in TD291-R1/PLEN.

A corresponding liaison statement to TSAG was agreed and may be found in TD427/PLEN “LS/o on SG13 status of preparations for WTSA-20".

Focus Group progress
FG-AN reported its activities and results of the last meetings in TD414/PLEN. The meeting noted the FG-AN progress to date, establishment of the communication channel with ETSI ZSM group and that FG participates in TMForum's Multi-SDO Autonomous Networks collaboration. Participants were invited to join the bi-weekly conference calls of the FG-AN to advance its work.

TD412/PLEN brought to the attention of the meeting the first Deliverable, FG-AN has been passing over to the SG13.

Through its progress report the FG-AN communicated to SG13 its request for extension of its lifetime for another 2 years in order to to give more time to finalize currently running deliverables and future plans. The entities, supported this request at November 2021 FG-AN meeting, were: China Mobile, China Telecom, China Unicom, OKI Electric, Rakuten Mobile, Telefonica, Centre Tecnològic de Telecomunicacions de Catalunya (CTTC), KAIST, ANCE Mexico, Queen's University Belfast (UK) and University of Strathclyde, Glasgow (UK).

Cs 1275, 1276 and 1332 proposed and supported continuation of the FG-AN operation for 2 years. The meeting considered the continuation of the FG-AN operation and agreed to authorize the FG-AN to continue its work until the first meeting of the SG13 in 2023 with review of its operation and consideration for further extension at that stage. The Terms of Reference of the FG-AN stay unchanged.

Supporting Members (from contributions): Rwanda, ZICTA (Zambia), China Mobile, China Telecom, China Unicom, Oki Electric, Rakuten Mobile, Telefónica (Spain), Tunisie Telecom, ZTE and KAIST.

Furthermore, the SG13 agreed on establishment of a new work item in the work programme of Q20/13, based on the first Deliverables of the FG-AN (TD569/GEN), Y.Supp-AN-Use Cases -Supplement “Use Cases for Autonomous Networks", TD952/WP1.

Coordination activities

WTSA-16 Resolution 73
TSAG requested all SGs to send their updates on Recommendations related to the protection of environment and climate change (per WTSA-16 Resolution 73 (TD413/PLEN)). To this end, SG13 agreed the reply to this request as captured in TD433/PLEN, annex 5.

JCA-IMT2020

TD421/PLEN contains the JCA-IMT2020 progress report.

The regular JCA-IMT2020 meeting took place virtually on 2 December 2021 alongside this SG13 meeting. As custom, it agreed on a big number of new Recommendations and technical specifications to be included into its ongoing project IMT-2020 and beyond roadmap. The JCA-IMT2020 discussed the continuation of its activities beyond 2021 and agreed to request SG13 for continuation of its operation in 2022. Term of References stays as those were updated back in July 2020 (TD287/PLEN). In order to match these ToR it was agreed to change the title of the JCA-IM2020 to read “Joint Coordination Activity on IMT2020 and Beyond" with the same abbreviated name as is has now. The request for continuation of the operation and changing the group's name was presented to SG13 in TD422/PLEN.

SG13 agreed on continuation of the JCA-IMT2020 operation in 2022 under the new name “Joint Coordination Activity on IMT2020 and Beyond" and with the same ToR and leadership. Short name of the group remains JCA-IMT2020. A liaison statement to TSAG about continuation of the JCA-IMT2020 with the new title was agreed as appears in TD423-R1/PLEN.

JCA-ML
C1305 “Considerations for joint coordination activity for machine learning" from Republic of Korea elaborated the proposal to set up a new coordination activity for the machine leaning studies under SG13.

An ad-hoc group on JCA-ML proposal was set up to assess the proposal and elaborate ToR for the new JCA. Mr Kangchan Lee (Q17/13 Rapporteur, ETRI) was nominated the convener of the ad-hoc group. Ad-hoc met twice during the SG13 December meeting, the report of this activities may be found in TD596/GEN. Ad-hoc group succeeded in developing the ToR for the proposed new group (TD596/GEN, appendix I) as well as presented to the plenary three possible options with regards to the new JCA-ML set up. The SG13 meeting examined all three options and agreed to defer the decision on establishment of the JCA-ML to the next SG13 meeting (planned for July 2022).

Joint session of Questions 2/13, 6/13, 17/13, 20/13 and 21/13 on Computing Force Network, Computing-Aware Networking, Computing Power Network.

At this meeting the proposals to set up the new work items on Computing Force Network came to Qs 6, 20 and 21/13. To better understand the idea of the proposal and its relationship with currently running work in Qs 2/13 (on computing power network) and in Q17/13 (on computing-aware networking), a joint meeting of Qs 2, 6, 17, 20 and 21/13 took place two times during the December 2021 SG13 meeting. The report of these sessions as well as come points from the discussion may be found in TD595/GEN.

Furthermore, a new terminology was proposed and agreed at individual Questions sessions, namely, to change Computing Force Network to computing and network convergence (CNC). Three new Recommendations on CNC were agreed for starting in Qs 6, 20 and 21/13 at this meeting.

Conformance and interoperability testing pilot
Q20/13 contributed to the reference table and pilot projects on conformance and interoperability testing, maintained by the SG11 (TD429/PLEN, annex 2).

Information session on the FG-QIT4N Deliverables took place on 6 December 2021, courtesy of the FG-QIT4N leadership team. The goal of the information session was to enable the smooth transition of the FG-QIT4N Deliverables to the ITU-T SGs. The presented material as well as the link to the records of the session may be found in TD597/GEN.

Bridging Standardization Gap (BSG)

SG13RG-AFR met on 2 June 2021 virtually. The report may be found in TD417/PLEN. It was approved by the meeting. In addition, per the decision of that meeting the comprehensive report of the SG13RG-AFR accomplishments in this study period was brought to the attention of the SG13 meeting (see TD592/GEN).

A regular SG13 regional workshop for Africa was held as a one-day virtual event, preceding the SG13RG-AFR meeting, on 1 June 2021. It was 8^th workshop of such a nature and it was entitled “Standardization and Future Networks: Opportunities for Africa beyond 2020". Key takes-aways may be seen in TD584/GEN.

The meeting plans for SG13RG-EECAT were suspended because of the pandemics.

BSG hands-on training session was offered by TSB to the SGs 11 and 13 delegates from developing countries on 30 November 2021.

New Work
There were 27 proposals to initiate the new work, out of which 20 were drafted in the form of a new Recommendation (15), Supplement (2), technical report (2), Implementer's Guide (1) and five kept in the living lists.

As indicated above, in total this meeting agreed to the initiation of 20 new work items, TD453/PLEN and TD583/GEN, TD418/PLEN.

Outreach – workshops and roadmaps
A regular newcomer session presentation was delivered by the SG13 Mentor, Mr Marco Carugi, on 29 November 2021. It attracted 14 participants. Presented material is available from TD593/GEN.

Workshop
The SG13 meeting tentatively planned the workshop on time sensitive networks for year 2022. Mr Taesang Choi (Q6/13 Rapporteur, ETRI) was nominated the workshop steering committee head. A call for volunteers to join the workshop organization group was made at the plenary.

Roadmaps
SG13 continues its work on

Revised Supplement on big data and data handling standardization roadmap, TD831/WP2. Anticipated approval is in December 2022. Original was published as Supplement 40 to Y.3600-series in 2015.
Supplement with the standardization roadmap on trustworthy networking and services, TD701/WP3, target for October 2023.
Supplement with the standardization roadmap on quantum key distribution networks, TD679/WP3, target for December 2023.
Supplement on Artificial Intelligence Standardization Roadmap, TD834/WP2. Anticipated completion is in December 2022.

Award

A SG13 award for dedication and outstanding support since 2008 to the work of SG13 was offered to one SG13 member following the practice since July 2018 SG13 meeting. This time the SG13 Fellow award was granted to Dr Leo Lehmann, the SG13 chairman since 2015.

In addition, a SG13 award was also granted to Dr Chaesub Lee, the SG13 chairman in 2008 – 2014.

The meeting participants supported both candidates with enthusiasm.

Delegates expressed their thanks to the Acting SG13 Chairman, Mr Yoshinori Goto, who stood in for the SG13 chairman, for the very efficient and smooth running of the SG13 meeting.

Future plans

An important number of interim meetings was agreed to (TD452/PLEN).

Draft Recommendation Y.2086 (Y.DNI-fr) “Framework and Requirements of Decentralized Trustworthy Network Infrastructure" is still in the AAP Last Call comments resolution phase.

The JCA-IMT2020 meeting will take place alongside the SG13 meeting in July 2022.

Next SG13 meeting is planned take place on 4 – 15 July 2022 in Geneva, place TBC.

Past Executive Summaries: