The European Telecommunication Standards Institute (ETSI) is adding more 5G support into its NFV work that will also tap into its relationship with fellow standards body 3GPP. The updates focus on support for resource management, orchestration, and network slicing.

The first two updates are being layered on top of ETSI’s NFV Release 2 specification. They will ensure interoperability between a 3GPP-defined management system and ETSI’s NFV Management and Orchestration (MANO) system. This will support resource management for virtualized core network (CN), virtualized radio access network (vRAN), and network slicing.

The ETSI NFV Release 2 specification dropped in 2016. It included nearly a dozen new group specifications tied to management of virtualized resources; lifecycle management of both network services and virtualized network functions (VNFs); network performance management; and virtualized resource capacity management. But it did not include any mention of 5G, which is understandable since 5G standards work was still in its infancy.

However, ETSI has since moved to include greater 5G support into Release 3. An ETSI spokeswoman explained that Release 2 supported some 5G deployments, specifically aspects of 5G that rely upon NFV.

For its more recent – and 5G-focused – NFV Release 3 specification, ETSI added support for network slicing in NFV, management over multi-administrative domain, and multi-site network connectivity. “These features are essential to address the variety of applications expected to run on top of a 5G system, whether using distributed resources over multiple sites, centralized or a combination of both,” ETSI explained. The ETSI spokeswoman did note that the network slicing, multi-domain support, and multi-site connectivity will not be “backported” to Release 2.

Release 3 also received an external touchpoint between the NFV’s network service and network slicing that is defined as a composite element of the 3GPP SA5 network slice subnet architecture. This will allow for easier deployment of the 3GPP SA5 Network Resource Model and the ETSI NFV Information Model.

ETSI will have stage 2 level specifications for Release 3 finished this summer, with stage 3 level specification expected to continue through the end of the year.

The standards group recently began work on its NFV Release 4 specifications that will focus on enhancing NFV infrastructure (NFVi) to support lightweight virtualization technologies (think containers and Kubernetes); enhancing NFV automation, lifecycle MANO, and management; updating the NFV MANO framework; and simplification of NFV deployments.

ETSI has been critical to the evolution of NFV MANO, including its initial framework issued in 2014. The group last month unveiled Release SIX if its Open Source MANO project that involved new capabilities to provide end-to-end orchestration across heterogeneous networks and cloud technologies.

Earlier this year, ETSI struck a deal to work more closely with the Linux Foundation on open source and standards. That includes ETSI’s ISG NFV working with the Linux Foundation’s OpenDaylight (ODL), Open Network Automation Platform (ONAP), and Open Platform for NFV (OPNFV) on NFV proofs of concept and collaborate on things like ONAP using ISG NFV specifications as development guidelines for implementation.

It’s also moving forward with its Multi-Access Edge Computing (MEC) group, which released its initial Phase 2 specifications in March. Those specifications deal with architecture, framework, and general principles for service APIs, and broaden support for different access technologies and NFV integration.