On December 10th and 11th 2015, 2015 China Future Network Development and Innovation Forum, co-hosted by the Chinese Academy of Engineering and Nanjing Municipal government, was successfully held in Nanjing, with the shared efforts from the co-organizers of China Institute of Communications, Jiangsu Future Networks Innovation Research Institute and Beijing Internet Institute.

Under the theme of “Construction of Future Network Experiment Infrastructure, Promotion of Network Development and Innovation”, the academicians of CAE, persons responsible for the future networks projects in the U.S., Europe and Japan, top-notch experts in the realm of information, mainstream telecom carriers at home and abroad, well-famed dot-coms, and representatives from advanced devices vendors, among almost one thousand attendees at the forum, discussed, in the great international event featuring the integration of academia, industry, and research, the development trend of future networks technology, the construction of future networks experiment infrastructure and the prospect of its application.

MIAO Ruilin Mayor of Nanjing addresses the open ceremony

CHEN Faxi chief executive of Jiangning District hosts the opening ceremony

Planning for future networks experiment infrastructure and seize the opportunity to lead the field

Globally speaking, future networks, as an emerging strategic industry, has drawn intensive attention from the developed world. The U.S., Europe and Japan have initiated a series of national projects of future networks experiment infrastructures. In the realm of academia, future networks has become a burning issue over recent years in a series of international academic conferences. In the industry, many internationally well-known companies stir a wave of merger and acquisition burning nearly ten billion dollars to snatch the zenith of future network development. AT&T, Google, Microsoft, IBM and other mainstream carriers and vendors are rushing against time to proceed with their deployment.

China attaches great importance to carrying out the first strike in leading the future network development. On February 23rd 2013, the State Council formally issued NO.8 document that listed future network experiment project in the Mid-long term planning of national key scientific and technological infrastructures  construction (2012-2013)。Future network experiment infrastructure is the first national key scientific and technological infrastructure in the sector of information and networks. It aims to establish an open, easy-to-use, and sustainably developing experiment environment of innovative networks in order to explore innovative network system frameworks, core mechanisms and key technologies, serve the need of experiment and validation of China and even the whole world for network evolution and revolutionarily innovative research, and promote China’s research and development in future network, which can result in the establishment of an experiment hub for network technology and application innovation with academia, industry, research and application integrated with each other. Large scale network experiment

In August 2015, NDRC clarified that Jiangsu Future Networks Innovation Institute was the legal person for the project, and together with Tsinghua University, University of Science and Technology of China and CAICT, it formally started the discussion and preparation for the project of future network experiment infrastructures, which marks the formal kick-off of the platform of network innovation at the level of national strategy, and which will realize interconnectivity with the U.S., Europe, Japan and other global platforms where China’s scientific and technological research, industrial innovation and national security will be intensively supported.

Keynote speech from academician of CAE

LI Guojie academician from CAE addresses the forum

Global attention to the hotspot with insight into networks future development

This forum includes many activities, such as keynote speeches, summit dialogue of global future networks, future network technology and industry development forum, future network academic forum, roundtable of industrial development, etc., guided by the concept of security, innovation, openness, cooperation and well-attended by Dan Pitt executive chair of ONF, Colin Dixon, chair of technological steering committee, Yanyong Zhang, responsible for MobilityFirst, Serge Fdida, responsible for the EU OneLab testbed, Shigeki Yamada, responsible for Japan’s SINET, academicians of CAE including Liu Yunjie, Li Guojie, Fang Binxing, Wu Jiangxing etc., and senior experts from China Telecom, China Unicom, China Mobile, Tencent, Jingdong,etc., who delivered nearly one hundred speeches on Construction of Future Network Experiment Infrastructure, Promotion of Network Development and Innovation and share us with their global vision into the future networks.

In addition, the future network forum has been in the spotlight from the very beginning of its preparation. The forum calls for papers, cases and demonstrations on the latest achievements of network system architecture design and realization, network communication protocol design, high performance router and switch design, network measurement and network traffic modelling, SDN, network function virtualization, information center networks, cloud computing and datacenter, big data theory and application, network service, network administration, air and ground integrated information network, optical access and optical transmission, 5G and future mobile communication network, internet of things, network of sensors, smart systems, computing science, network integration, cyber space security technology, and data privacy protection, etc. The forum has received 238 papers, 67 of high quality among which, through several rounds of reviews, have been accepted, and the result was announced at the forum, with the selected papers awarded, which bears a significant meaning for innovation in China’s future networks.

Exhibition hall brimming with people

Various featured activities lay the foundation for a comprehensive platform

On top of academic and industrial discussions, at the forum, the SDN testing and certificating center shared efforts with ONF to hold “Ceremony of First OpenFlow v1.3 Conformant Products in China”, where representatives from Huawei, Zhongxing, H3C and DCN were awarded by ONF the consistency certificates and testing reports of OpenFlow 1.3. The SDN Center also issued “Performance Test White Paper for SDN Controller”, available for download for free, which is convenient for vendors to fully understand the progress in the industry and open-source controller performance.

There are also many wonderful events outside the forum venue, Jiangsu Future Networks Research Institute, Nanjing Future Network Industrial Innovation Co.,Ltd, H3C, ZTE, Brocade, CertusNet, Dell, Spirent, etc. demonstrated their latest solutions. The spectators at the site and vendors compared notes with each other about the latest technology and business model. At the same time, 11 devices certified by OpenFlow 1.3 Consistency Certificating and frame-type and box-type switches currently under testing were also demonstrated on site. The engineers from the SDN center and those from the vendors introduced the SDN latest products and technological advancement and solutions, which propelled the integration of industry and technologies and boosted SDN industrial deployment.

The forum has attracted industrial leaders, research experts, government officials and experts from vendors and the companies where the technologies are applied, who grasped the industrial and technological cores with a global vision and through the point of view from China, to lead the charge towards future network development.