Multi-access Edge Computing (MEC) facilitates the deployment of critical applications with stringent QoS requirements, latency in particular. This paper considers the problem of jointly planning the availability of computational resources at the edge, the slicing of mobile network and edge computation resources, and the routing of heterogeneous traffic types to the various slices. These aspects are intertwined and must be addressed together to provide the desired QoS to all mobile users and traffic types still keeping costs under control. We formulate our problem as a mixed-integer nonlinear program (MINLP) and we define a heuristic, named Neighbor Exploration and Sequential Fixing (NESF), to facilitate the solution of the problem. The approach allows network operators to fine tune the network operation cost and the total latency experienced by users. We evaluate the performance of the proposed model and heuristic against two natural greedy approaches. We show the impact of the variation of all the considered parameters (viz., different types of traffic, tolerable latency, network topology and bandwidth, computation and link capacity) on the defined model. Numerical results demonstrate that NESF is very effective, achieving near-optimal planning and resource allocation solutions in a very short computing time even for large-scale network scenarios.
We argue for network slicing as an efficient solution that addresses the diverse requirements of 5G mobile networks, thus providing the necessary flexibility and scalability associated with future network implementations. We elaborate on the challenges that emerge when we design 5G networks based on network slicing. We focus on the architectural aspects associated with the coexistence of dedicated as well as shared slices in the network. In particular, we analyze the realization options of a flexible radio access network with focus on network slicing and their impact on the design of 5G mobile…
Unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) networks are convinced as a significant part of 5G and emerging 6G wireless networks. UAV slicing is a promising proposal of converging different services onto a common UAV network without deploying individual network solution for each type of service. This paper is concerned with UAV slicing for providing energy-efficient and fair service coverage for enhanced mobile broadband (eMBB) users (UEs). Aiming at physically configuring UAV slices, the UAV slicing problem is formulated as a time-dependent mixed-integer-non-convex programming problem with a goal of maximi…
Through network slicing, different requirements of different applications and services can be met. These requirements can be in terms of latency, bandwidth, mobility support, defining service area, as well as security. Through fine and dynamic tuning of network slices, services can have their delivery platforms constantly customized according to their changing needs. In this article, we present our implementation of an E2E network slice orchestration platform, evaluate its performance in terms of dynamic deployment of network slices in an E2E fashion, and discuss how its functionality can be e…
Network slicing offers an opportunity to realize ICN as a slice in 5G deployment. We demonstrate this through a generic service orchestration framework operating on commodity compute, storage and bandwidth resource pool to realize multiple ICN service slices. Specifically, we show the dynamic creation of real-time audio/video conferencing slices, over which multi-participant communication is enabled. These slices leverage ICN features of name-based routing, integrated security, inherent support for multicasting and mobility, and in-network caching-and-computing to scale and deliver services ef…
Logistics is a key economic sector where any optimization that reduces costs or improves service has a great impact on society at large. In this paper, the role of two 5G Network Slicing (NS) strategies in Smart Logistics is studied: the use of a static slice with a balance division of network resources and the use of a dynamic slice. To validate the potential gains of these strategies, a Distribution Center with 5G connectivity is simulated, recreating the activity that takes place in a real Smart Logistics scenario. Results show that a dynamic slice makes a more efficient usage of the networ…
Wireless network slicing (i.e., network virtualization) is one of the potential technologies for addressing the issue of rapidly growing demand in mobile data services related to 5G cellular networks. It logically decouples the current cellular networks into two entities; infrastructure providers (InPs) and mobile virtual network operators (MVNOs). The resources of base stations (e.g., resource blocks, transmission power, antennas) which are owned by the InP are shared to multiple MVNOs who need resources for their mobile users. Specifically, the physical resources of an InP are abstracted int…
Network Slicing has been widely accepted as essential feature of future 5th Generation (5G) mobile communication networks. Accounting the potentially dense demand of network slices as a cloud service and the limited resource of mobile network operators (MNOs), an efficient inter-slice management and orchestration plays a key role in 5G networks. This calls advanced solutions for slice admission and congestion control. This paper proposes a novel approach of inter-slice control that well copes with existing pre-standardized 5G architectures
Network slicing is a key capability for next generation mobile networks. It enables one to cost effectively customize logical networks over a shared infrastructure. A critical component of network slicing is resource allocation, which needs to ensure that slices receive the resources needed to support their mobiles/services while optimizing network efficiency. In this paper, we propose a novel approach to slice-based resource allocation named Guaranteed seRvice Efficient nETwork slicing (GREET). The underlying concept is to set up a constrained resource allocation game, where (i) slices unilat…
Peng Cheng Laboratory（鹏城实验室）；University of Waterloo（滑铁卢大学）；Huazhong University of Science and Technology（华中科技大学）；University of Windsor（温莎大学）
In this paper, we study a network slicing problem for edge-cloud orchestrated vehicular networks, in which the edge and cloud servers are orchestrated to process computation tasks for reducing network slicing cost while satisfying the quality of service requirements. We propose a two-stage network slicing framework, which consists of 1) network planning stage in a large timescale to perform slice deployment, edge resource provisioning, and cloud resource provisioning, and 2) network operation stage in a small timescale to perform resource allocation and task dispatching. Particularly, we formu…
Radio access network (RAN) slicing realizes a vision where physical network resources that belong to a specific infrastructure provider can be shared among multiple mobile network operators (MNOs). Existing work in this area has addressed RAN slicing at different levels of network abstractions, but has often neglected the multitude of tightly intertwined inter-level operations involved in real-world slicing systems. For this reason, this article discusses a novel framework for operator-to-waveform 5G RAN slicing. In the proposed framework, slicing operations are treated holistically, including…
Network slicing allows different applications and network services to be deployed on virtualized resources running on a common underlying physical infrastructure. Developing a scalable system for the orchestration of end-to-end (E2E) mobile network slices requires careful planning and very reliable algorithms. In this paper, we propose a novel E2E Network Slicing Orchestration System (NSOS) and a Dynamic Auto- Scaling Algorithm (DASA) for it. Our NSOS relies strongly on the foundation of a hierarchical architecture that incorporates dedicated entities per domain to manage every segment of the …
The ever increasing number of connected devices and of new and heterogeneous mobile use cases implies that 5G cellular systems will face demanding technical challenges. For example, Ultra-Reliable Low-Latency Communication (URLLC) and enhanced Mobile Broadband (eMBB) scenarios present orthogonal Quality of Service (QoS) requirements that 5G aims to satisfy with a unified Radio Access Network (RAN) design. Network slicing and mmWave communications have been identified as possible enablers for 5G. They provide, respectively, the necessary scalability and flexibility to adapt the network to each …
Benefiting from the widely deployed LTE infrastructures, the fifth generation (5G) wireless networks have been becoming a critical enabler for the emerging vehicle-to-everything (V2X) communications. However, existing LTE networks cannot efficiently support stringent but dynamic requirements of V2X services. One effective solution to overcome this challenge is network slicing, whereby different services could be supported by logically separated networks. To mitigate the increasing complexity of network slicing in 5G, we propose to leverage the recent advancement of Machine Learning (ML) techno…
Network slicing is emerging as a promising method to provide sought-after versatility and flexibility to cope with ever-increasing demands. To realize such potential advantages and to meet the challenging requirements of various network slices in an on-demand fashion, we need to develop an agile and distributed mechanism for resource provisioning to different network slices in a heterogeneous multi-resource multi-domain mobile network environment. We formulate inter-domain resource provisioning to network slices in such an environment as an optimization problem which maximizes social welfare a…
End-to-End (E2E) network slicing enables wireless networks to provide diverse services on a common infrastructure. Each E2E slice, including resources of radio access network (RAN) and core network, is rented to mobile virtual network operators (MVNOs) to provide a specific service to end-users. RAN slicing, which is realized through wireless network virtualization, involves sharing the frequency spectrum and base station antennas in RAN. Similarly, in core slicing, which is achieved by network function virtualization, data center resources such as commodity servers and physical links are shar…
Developing specialized cloud-based and open-source testbeds is a practical approach to investigate network slicing functionalities in the fifth-generation (5G) mobile networks. This paper provides a comprehensive review of most of the existing cost-efficient and small-scale testbeds that partially or fully deploy network slicing. First, we present relevant software packages for the three main functional blocks of the ETSI NFV MANO framework and for emulating the access and core network domains. Second, we define primary and secondary design criteria for deploying network slicing testbeds. Thes…
We present an architecture for the provision of video Content Delivery Network (CDN) functionality as a service over a multi-domain cloud. We introduce the concept of a CDN slice, that is, a CDN service instance which is created upon a content provider's request, is autonomously managed, and spans multiple potentially heterogeneous edge cloud infrastructures. Our design is tailored to a 5G mobile network context, building on its inherent programmability, management flexibility, and the availability of cloud resources at the mobile edge level, thus close to end users. We exploit Network Functio…
A significant purpose of 5G networks is allowing sharing resources among different network tenants such as service providers and Mobile Virtual network Operators. Numerous domains are taken in account regarding resource sharing containing different infrastructure (storage, compute and networking), Radio Access Network (RAN) and Radio Frequency (RF) spectrum. RAN and spectrum, transport. Spectrum sharing and RAN are anticipated as the fundamental part in multi-tenant 5G network. Nevertheless, there is a shortage of evaluation platforms to determine the number of benefits that can be acquired fr…
5G mobile networks encompass the capabilities of hosting a variety of services such as mobile social networks, multimedia delivery, healthcare, transportation, and public safety. Therefore, the major challenge in designing the 5G networks is how to support different types of users and applications with different quality-of-service requirements under a single physical network infrastructure. Recently, network slicing has been introduced as a promising solution to address this challenge. Network slicing allows programmable network instances which match the service requirements by using network v…
Network slicing is the key to enable virtualized resource sharing among vertical industries in the era of 5G communication. Efficient resource allocation is of vital importance to realize network slicing in real-world business scenarios. To deal with the high algorithm complexity, privacy leakage, and unrealistic offline setting of current network slicing algorithms, in this paper we propose a fully decentralized and low-complexity online algorithm, DPoS, for multi-resource slicing. We first formulate the problem as a global social welfare maximization problem. Next, we design the online algor…
Next generation wireless architectures are expected to enable slices of shared wireless infrastructure which are customized to specific mobile operators/services. Given infrastructure costs and the stochastic nature of mobile services' spatial loads, it is highly desirable to achieve efficient statistical multiplexing amongst such slices. We study a simple dynamic resource sharing policy which allocates a 'share' of a pool of (distributed) resources to each slice-Share Constrained Proportionally Fair (SCPF). We give a characterization of SCPF's performance gains over static slicing and general…
The fifth generation of mobile communications is anticipated to open up innovation opportunities for new industries such as vertical markets. However, these verticals originate myriad use cases with diverging requirements that future 5G networks have to efficiently support. Network slicing may be a natural solution to simultaneously accommodate over a common network infrastructure the wide range of services that vertical-specific use cases will demand. In this article, we present the network slicing concept, with a particular focus on its application to 5G systems. We start by summarizing the …
This article reveals an adequate comprehension of basic defense, security challenges, 2 and attack vectors in deploying multi-network slicing. Network slicing is a revolutionary concept 3 of providing mobile network on-demand and expanding mobile networking business and services 4 to a new era. The new business paradigm and service opportunities are encouraging vertical 5 industries to join and develop their own mobile network capabilities for enhanced performances 6 that are coherent with their applications. However, a number of security concerns are also raised 7 in this new era. In this art…
Local 5G networks are expected to emerge to serve different vertical sectors specific requirements. These networks can be deployed by traditional mobile network operators or entrant local operators. With a large number of verticals with different service requirements, while considering the network deployment cost in a single local area, it will not be economically feasible to deploy separate networks for each vertical. Thus, locally deployed 5G networks (aka micro operator networks) that can serve multiple verticals with multiple tenants in a location have gained increasing attention. Network …
The notions of softwarization and virtualization of the radio access network (RAN) of next-generation (5G) wireless systems are ushering in a vision where applications and services are physically decoupled from devices and network infrastructure. This crucial aspect will ultimately enable the dynamic deployment of heterogeneous services by different network operators over the same physical infrastructure. RAN slicing is a form of 5G virtualization that allows network infrastructure owners to dynamically "slice" and "serve" their network resources (i.e., spectrum, power, antennas, among others)…
Network slicing allows mobile network operators to open their physical network infrastructure platform to the concurrent deployment of multiple logical self-contained networks, i.e., network slices. In this paper we propose and analyze ONETS: an Online NETwork Slicing solution that (i) builds on the budgeted lock-up multi-armed bandit mathematical model and properties, (ii) derives its analytical bounds in our proposed extension for network slicing, (iii) seamlessly integrates into the 3GPP architecture, (iv) proves its feasibility through a proof-of-concept implementation on commercial hardwa…
With the advent of revolutionary technologies, such as virtualization and softwarization, a novel concept for 5G networks and beyond has been unveiled: Network Slicing. Initially driven by the research community, standardization bodies as 3GPP have embraced it as a promising solution to revolutionize the traditional mobile telecommunication market by enabling new business models opportunities. Network Slicing is envisioned to open up the telecom market to new players such as Industry Verticals, e.g. automotive, smart factories, e-health, etc. Given the large number of potential new business pl…
Artificial intelligence (AI)-driven zero-touch massive network slicing is envisioned to be a disruptive technology in beyond 5G (B5G)/6G, where tenancy would be extended to the final consumer in the form of advanced digital use-cases. In this paper, we propose a novel model-free deep reinforcement learning (DRL) framework, called collaborative statistical Actor-Critic (CS-AC) that enables a scalable and farsighted slice performance management in a 6G-like RAN scenario that is built upon mobile edge computing (MEC) and massive multiple-input multiple-output (mMIMO). In this intent, the proposed…
Technology Innovation Institute（技术创新研究院）；Trinity College Dublin（都柏林圣三一学院）
Network slicing is a well assessed approach enabling virtualization of the mobile core and radio access network (RAN) in the emerging 5th Generation New Radio. Slicing is of paramount importance when dealing with the emerging and diverse vertical applications entailing heterogeneous sets of requirements. 5G is also envisioning Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) to be a key element in the cellular network standard, aiming at their use as aerial base stations and exploiting their flexible and quick deployment to enhance the wireless network performance. This work presents a UAV-assisted 5G network,…
In order to meet the performance/privacy requirements of future data-intensive mobile applications, e.g., self-driving cars, mobile data analytics, and AR/VR, service providers are expected to draw on shared storage/computation/connectivity resources at the network "edge". To be cost-effective, a key functional requirement for such infrastructure is enabling the sharing of heterogeneous resources amongst tenants/service providers supporting spatially varying and dynamic user demands. This paper proposes a resource allocation criterion, namely, Share Constrained Slicing (SCS), for slices alloca…
The challenging requirements of 5G--from both the applications and the architecture perspectives--motivate the need to explore the feasibility of delivering services over new network architectures. As 5G proposes application-centric network slicing, which enables the use of new data planes realizable over a programmable compute, storage, and transport infrastructure, we consider Information-centric Networking (ICN) as a candidate network architecture to realize 5G objectives. This can co-exist with end-to-end IP services that are offered today. To this effect, we first propose a 5G-ICN archite…
Virtual reality (VR) enables mobile wireless users to experience multimodal perceptions in a virtual space. In this paper we investigate the problem of concurrent support of visual and haptic perceptions over wireless cellular networks, with a focus on the downlink transmission phase. While the visual perception requires moderate reliability and maximized rate, the haptic perception requires fixed rate and high reliability. Hence, the visuo-haptic VR traffic necessitates the use of two different network slices: enhanced mobile broadband (eMBB) for visual perception and ultra-reliable and low l…
Radio access network (RAN) slicing is a key technology that enables 5G network to support heterogeneous requirements of generic services, namely ultra-reliable low-latency communication (URLLC) and enhanced mobile broadband (eMBB). In this paper, we propose a two time-scales RAN slicing mechanism to optimize the performance of URLLC and eMBB services. In a large time-scale, an SDN controller allocates radio resources to gNodeBs according to the requirements of the eMBB and URLLC services. In a short time-scale, each gNodeB allocates its available resources to its end-users and requests, if nee…
5G radio access network (RAN) slicing aims to logically split an infrastructure into a set of self-contained programmable RAN slices, with each slice built on top of the underlying physical RAN (substrate) is a separate logical mobile network, which delivers a set of services with similar characteristics. Each RAN slice is constituted by various virtual network functions (VNFs) distributed geographically in numerous substrate nodes. A key challenge in building a robust RAN slicing is, therefore, designing a RAN slicing (RS)-configuration scheme that can utilize information such as resource ava…
LLM-Empowered Agentic AI for QoE-Aware Network Slicing Management in Industrial IoT
State Key Laboratory of Networking and Switching Technology, Beijing University of Posts and Telecommunications（北京邮电大学网络与交换技术国家重点实验室）；College of Computing and Data Science, Nanyang Technological University（南洋理工大学计算与数据科学学院）；Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering, University of Hong Kong（香港大学电子电气工程学系）；School of Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of Sydney（悉尼大学电气与计算机工程学院）
Network slicing allows Mobile Network Operators to split the physical infrastructure into isolated virtual networks (slices), managed by Service Providers to accommodate customized services. The Service Function Chains (SFCs) belonging to a slice are usually deployed on a best-effort premise: nothing guarantees that network infrastructure resources will be sufficient to support a varying number of users, each with uncertain requirements. Taking the perspective of a network Infrastructure Provider (InP), this paper proposes a resource provisioning approach for slices, robust to a partly unknown…
The fifth generation of communication technology (5G) revolutionizes mobile networks and the associated ecosystems through the integration of cross-domain networks. Network slicing is an enabling technology for 5G as it provides dynamic, on-demand, and reliable logical network slices (i.e., network services) over a common physical network/infrastructure. Since a network slice is subject to failures originated from disruptions, namely node or link failures, in the physical infrastructure, our utmost interest is to evaluate the reliability of a network slice before assigning it to customers. In …
Ultra Reliable Low Latency Communication (URLLC) is a 5G New Radio (NR) application that requires strict reliability and latency. URLLC traffic is usually scheduled on top of the ongoing enhanced Mobile Broadband (eMBB) transmissions (i.e., puncturing the current eMBB transmission) and cannot be queued due to its hard latency requirements. In this letter, we propose a risk-sensitive based formulation to allocate resources to the incoming URLLC traffic while minimizing the risk of the eMBB transmission (i.e., protecting the eMBB users with low data rate) and ensuring URLLC reliability. Specific…
As the next-generation Internet paradigm, Web 3.0 encapsulates the expectations of user-centric immersion and interaction experiences in a decentralized manner. Metaverse, a virtual world interacting with the physical world, is becoming one of the most potential technology to push forward with Web 3.0. In the Metaverse, users expect to tailor immersive and interactive experiences by customizing real-time Metaverse services (e.g., augmented/virtual reality and digital twin) in the three-dimensional virtual world. Nevertheless, there are still no unified solutions for the Metaverse services in t…
This paper studies the multi-agent resource allocation problem in vehicular networks using non-orthogonal multiple access (NOMA) and network slicing. To ensure heterogeneous service requirements for different vehicles, we propose a network slicing architecture. We focus on a non-cellular network scenario where vehicles communicate by the broadcast approach via the direct device-to-device interface. In such a vehicular network, resource allocation among vehicles is very difficult, mainly due to (i) the rapid variation of wireless channels among highly mobile vehicles and (ii) the lack of a cent…
Network slicing envisions the 5th generation (5G) mobile network resource allocation to be based on different requirements for different services, such as Ultra-Reliable Low Latency Communication (URLLC) and Enhanced Mobile Broadband (eMBB). Open Radio Access Network (O-RAN), proposes an open and disaggregated concept of RAN by modulizing the functionalities into independent components. Network slicing for O-RAN can significantly improve performance. Therefore, an advanced resource allocation solution for network slicing in O-RAN is proposed in this study by applying Reinforcement Learning (RL…
Salvador University (UNIFACS)（萨尔瓦多大学（UNIFACS））；University of Paris Saclay（巴黎萨克雷大学）；University of Evry（埃夫里大学）
Network slicing is a crucial enabler to support the composition and deployment of virtual network infrastructures required by the dynamic behavior of networks like 5G/6G mobile networks, IoT-aware networks, e-health systems, and industry verticals like the internet of vehicles (IoV) and industry 4.0. The communication slices and their allocated communication resources are essential in slicing architectures for resource orchestration and allocation, virtual network function (VNF) deployment, and slice operation functionalities. The communication slices provide the communications capabilities re…
In order to mitigate the problem of data congestion, increased latency, and high energy consumption in Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs), Mobile Agent (MA) has been proven to be a viable alternative to the traditional client-server data gathering model. MA has the ability to migrate among network nodes based on an assigned itinerary, which can be formed via Single Itinerary Planning (SIP) or Multiple Itinerary Planning (MIP). MIP-based data gathering approach solves problems associated with SIP in terms of task duration, energy consumption, and reliability. However, the majority of existing MIP …
University of California, Davis（加州大学戴维斯分校）；Shanghai Jiao Tong University（上海交通大学）；University of Minnesota（明尼苏达大学）
As mobile networks proliferate, we are experiencing a strong diversification of services, which requires greater flexibility from the existing network. Network slicing is proposed as a promising solution for resource utilization in 5G and future networks to address this dire need. In network slicing, dynamic resource orchestration and network slice management are crucial for maximizing resource utilization. Unfortunately, this process is too complex for traditional approaches to be effective due to a lack of accurate models and dynamic hidden structures. We formulate the problem as a Constrain…
