Deliverable D6.3 Initial Design of 6G Smart Network Management Framework

This document describes the initial design and implementation of the enablers for 6G Smart Network Management, contributing to the 2nd iteration of the Hexa-X-II end-to-end system blueprint. The deliverable provides an initial overview of the Smart Network Management framework defined in the project. It analyses its contributions to the Hexa-X-II architecture design principles and lists the technical enablers for the management and orchestration functionalities, highlighting the main enhancements and innovations with respect to the Hexa-X architecture.
The categorization of the enablers has been updated with respect to D6.2, to provide an improved and unified picture of their role and contribution in the Hexa-X-II Smart Network Management system. The enablers cover the functionalities and objectives of a 6G network Management & Orchestration (M&O) system, providing the technical foundations for programmable network configuration and monitoring, network capability exposure, synergetic resource orchestration across the continuum, and zero-touch network automation. All these functionalities are supported by advanced techniques for security and trustworthiness, AI/ML algorithms, and network digital twins.
For each enabler, the document illustrates the design and presents the ongoing implementation, providing early validation results and discussing the enablers’ contributions to KPIs and KVIs. The role of the enablers in Hexa-X-II PoCs is presented as well, with initial integration and evaluation results.
Finally, as key contribution towards the design of the end-to-end Hexa-X-II system, the document analyses the alignment of the M&O enablers with the end-to-end system blueprint, identifying the mapping with the current components and potential gaps to be filled with new elements or interfaces. This will feed the next iteration of the end-to-end Hexa-X-II system design, under development in WP2, following the overall methodology defined in the project.