5G and B5G NEF exposure capabilities towards an Industrial IoT use case

Given the large amount of data usage and diverse business models in the current market, 5G and B5G networks are forecasted to manage and support a variety of new business solutions with respect to high-performance needs, while also allowing existing services to be enhanced and optimized. One effective way to accomplish this is by fully utilizing the network's openness and programmability in terms of both business and technical level coordination. A cornerstone to the above mentioned premise is the implementation of the Network Exposure Function (NEF) interfaces that are required in order for NEF to expose the standardized APIs. In this context, the paper presents the concept of network exposure via a simulation tool that enables application developers to experiment with the northbound APIs under a simulated and configurable environment. Moreover, the required software that interacts with the exposed APIs, namely the Network Application, is introduced and validated on top of the Internet of Things (IoT) and Machine to Machine (M2M) use case, which falls under the scope of the Factory of the Future and Industry 4.0 concept.