The 5G-MEDIA will apply SDN and NFV concepts to media applications to flexibly and dynamically embed them as virtual network functions (VFNs) within the 5G networks and cloud infrastructures. In the form of virtual machines, containers or unikernels, these applications will be managed by using a serverless computing paradigm. To ensure high performance levels in terms of high bandwidth and low latency, the media application functions will be deployed close to traffic sources and sinks, and the 5G-MEDIA Management and Orchestration (MANO) function will deploy smart algorithms for configuring network paths and virtual slices to deliver the required network capacity and performance levels at the network edge. 5G-MEDIA will deliver a DevOps environment for media applications which will hide the complexity of service development and deployment on the underlying 5G infrastructure, allowing developers to concentrate on the media application layer. Also, 5G-MEDIA will deliver a service virtualisation platform to orchestrate the deployment and scaling of the media applications, interacting automatically with the underlying network for the dynamic control of the network paths and forwarding graphs by applying machine learning and cognitive optimisation techniques.

The main building blocks comprising the 5G-MEDIA architecture will include:

1. an Application Development SDK that accommodates all the tools for media applications development;
2. a Service Virtualization Platform that hosts the components related to the MANO framework;
3. a VNF/NetApp Repository as well as generic components that can be used across many applications;
4. a Central Cloud environment that facilitates the deployment of legacy components and services especially those instantiated on physical/specialized hardware;
5. Network Function Virtualization Infrastructures (NFVIs) that provide cloud resources owned by different operators and managed by the Service Virtualization Platform administrator and the OSS/BSS system that allow users to gain access to 5G-MEDIA platform services.