# Key Technologies in the Context of Future Networks: Operational and Management Requirements
## 3 Research Overview
As part of the Horizon 2020 programme, 5G-NORMA [38] is a research project which aimed to provision an adaptive and open 5G infrastructure with capabilities to service customization, enhanced performance and security. To this purpose, this project introduces adaptability capacity to allocate mobile network functions in the most appropriate location and in a short time. Likewise, METIS II [39] presents a novel 5G RAN design, introducing a protocol stack architecture intended to provide a seamless integration of 5G radio technologies. The innovations of METIS II are focused on the spectrum management, air interfaces harmonization, resource management and a common control and user plane framework. The integration of them will support regulatory and standardization bodies. Other ongoing H2020 projects that combine SDN and NFV technologies are CHARISMA [40] and SONATA [41]. CHARISMA will enable the deployment of an intelligent cloud radio access network (C-RAN) and virtualized Customer Premise Equipment (CPE). SONATA will support network function chaining and an enhanced orchestration process in order to allow service customization. The provision of innovative hardware and software platforms to support 5G infrastructures is proposed in FLEX5 GWARE [42]. This project attempts to develop and prototype key components of 5G networks in the hardware and software domains. The main objective of this project is to deliver a highly reconfigurable hardware platform together with a well suited software platform, over which network elements and devices can be deployed following a modular, efficient and scalable approach. Several components must be deployed as 5G enablers, such as MIMO emulators, high-speed broadband converters, Filter Bank Multi-Carrier (FBMC) transceivers, Low-Density Parity Check (LDPC) codes, etc., with suitable interfaces to allow flexible software-based management schemes. The integration of SDN, SON, NFV and Artificial Intelligence is encompassed by the SELFNET [43; 44] project, which introduces intelligent, self-organizing and autonomic capacities to 5G networks, taking advantage not only of SDN and SON but also NFV and Cloud Computing. This project will provide a scalable, extensible and smart architecture to foster innovation and decrease capital and operational expenditures derived from network management tasks. Moreover, SELFNET introduces the SON concept to facilitate the automatic management of network infrastructures. SON solutions are typically classified into three domains: self-protection, self-optimization and self-healing, which are the use cases proposed by SELFNET. Likewise, the COGNET Project [45] proposes the introduction of machine Learning, SDN and NFV in order to enhance monitoring tasks and autonomic network management. COGNET predicts the resource demand requirements and then changes its own configuration based on the network analysis (prediction, frauds, detecting error and security conditions). Table 1 shows the current European use-case driven projects that tackle different 5G requirements, through a combination of SDN, NFV, SON and cloud computing concepts. All of these projects take into account SDN in different domains, such as e-health services, security, service chaining, multimedia optimization, etc. \begin{table}
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Last, but not least, it is worth mentioning the research efforts in the Americas, where a group of telecommunication service providers and manufacturers created the 5G Americas [46], an organization intended to foster the development of LTE wireless technology leveraging the adoption of 5G in the North and South America's society. At the same time, several activities have been conducted by academia.