Hi, I'm Sujata from Intel. In this video, we talk about the unique challenges 5G poses on the network infrastructure and how SDN (software-defined networking) and NFV (network function virtualization) can help meet these requirements on common off the shelf servers. 

Beyond being the next generation of wireless networks, 5G is also an innovation technology for services, applications, and billions of connected devices. The [? weighted ?] applications and technologies that 5G supports demands a flexible and agile network in addition to being fast and latency-sensitive. Today, the network is composed of purpose-built infrastructure for functions like routing, virtual private networking, or VPN, load balancing, and firewall. 

With NFV and SDN, instead of running these as separate instances on three different pieces of hardware, you can run all three on the same infrastructure as virtual machines or containers. This gives an infrastructure or application developer the capability to manage the entire network with a single pane of glass. Intel Virtualized 5G end-to-end infrastructure is comprised of a host of hardware infrastructure from modems, CPUs, NICs, FPGAs, and software components such as flexRAN, RefPHY, and MEC. 

FlexRAN is a reference software to run virtualized layer 1, layer 2, or layer 3 functionalities on Intel architecture. This solution provides a key standard feature for RAN control plane and data plane software, such as uplink/downlink data transmission, different antenna combinations, and number of cells or core flexibility. So it is easier for vendors to use this in their commercialized product. 

Another major breakthrough has been in deploying applications at the edge using multi-access edge computing. The objective is to create a standardized open environment to deploy applications close to the network edge. Intel has developed NEV-SDK, a set of libraries to help developers build MEC applications. Intel's modems are designed to meet the physical requirement of 5G, for example, millimeter wave support, high bandwidth, and lower latency. 

Intel's software offerings are optimized and designed to be flexible and dynamic to meet the needs of applications like network slicing. Network slicing allows developers to implement multiple network instances with varying sets of SLAs, or service-level agreements, on the same network. 5G is driven by many different use cases, like smart cities, automated driving, and AR/VR. Yet, the reality is roughly 4 billion people still do not have access to network services. 

Cheap backward compatibility to legacy technologies dating back to 2G is the only way to close this gap. The OpenCellular project, founded by Facebook, and the Telecom Infra Project are working to build an active open-source community around cellular access technology to achieve this. Intel is working with the 5G community to come up with optimized hardware and software solutions to reduce time and cost of development. 

To learn more and to get involved with these technologies, follow the links provided to join. Don't forget to like and subscribe to the Intel® Software YouTube channel. Thanks for watching.