Cloudification of Time-Sensitive Networking Reliability Functions: Challenges and Potential Solution Directions

The IEEE 802.1 Time-Sensitive Networking (TSN) standards gained ground in various application areas due to delivering deterministic communication over low-cost Ethernet networks. Adopting the network function virtualization and cloud computing model in various TSN-based industries calls to make TSN cloud-ready and enable end-to-end deterministic communication, including edge clouds. When cloud-ready TSN functions are combined and/or integrated with 5G Ultra-Reliable Low Latency wireless capabilities and Time-Sensitive Communication components, unprecedented networking possibilities become available for various industries. Given that the cloudification of the TSN standards is a vast subject, this article focuses on the ultra-reliability and high availability provided by the IEEE 802.1 CB Frame Replication and Elimination for Reliability (FRER) standard. In this article, we identify the major FRER cloudification challenges and outline potential solution directions to ensure a cloud-friendly FRER implementation.