What the NRF does
The NRF maintains profiles of network-function instances and supports service discovery. Network functions can register available services and discover suitable authorised providers.
Why SBA needs discovery
A cloud-native Core may contain multiple scalable instances of the same function. Discovery avoids hard-coding every relationship and supports dynamic service selection.
Slicing relevance
Network-function profiles and selection criteria can include slice-related capabilities, helping control functions find suitable service providers.
Standards note: this page is an explanatory summary. Precise procedures, services and information elements are defined in the applicable 3GPP specifications.