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 mobile network from the access, to the transport and core network part for a scalable orchestration of federated network slices. The DASA enables the NSOS to autonomously adapt its resources to changes in the demand for slice orchestration requests (SORs) while enforcing a given mean overall time taken by the NSOS to process any SOR. The proposed DASA includes both proactive and reactive resource provisioning techniques). The proposed resource dimensioning heuristic algorithm of the DASA is based on a queuing model for the NSOS, which consists of an open network of G/G/m queues. Finally, we validate the proper operation and evaluate the performance of our DASA solution for the NSOS by means of system-level simulations.
Cross-stakeholder service orchestration is a generalization of 5G network slices which has potential to increase business agility in Beyond 5G (B5G). An architectural framework is proposed which enables domain operators to expose their functionalities towards E2E services as capabilities. Capability orchestration is proposed as a mechanism for exposure. The use of intent-based management for communicating domain owner's business goals to capability orchestration is analyzed. The combination of business goal input and capability orchestration provides a basis for agile monetization of domain re…
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…
A sophisticated and efficient network slicing architecture is needed to support the orchestration of network slices across multiple administrative domains. Such multi-domain architecture shall be agnostic of the underlying virtualization and network infrastructure technologies. Its objective is to extend the traditional orchestration, management and control capabilities by means of models and constructs in order to form a well-stitched composition of network slices. To facilitate such composition of networking and compute/storage resources, this paper introduces a management and orchestration …
Driven by closed-loop automation, the Zero-Touch Network and Services Management (ZSM) framework offers invigorating features for the end-to-end management and orchestration of a sliced network. Although ZSM is considered a promising framework by 3GPP, there is a lack of concrete ZSM-based solutions for the 3GPP Network Slicing management. This article presents an architectural framework of a ZSM-based management system for 3GPP Network Slicing. The proposed framework employs recursive ZSM management domains to meet the specific management requirements of the standard 3GPP Network Slicing fram…
In this work, we propose and experimentally assess the automatic and flexible NSs configurations of optical OPSquare DCN controlled and orchestrated by an extended SDN control plane for multi-tenant applications with differentiated QoS provisioning. Optical Flow Control (OFC) protocol has been developed to prevent packet losses at switch sides caused by packet contentions.Based on the collected resource topology of data plane, the optical network slices can be dynamically provisioned and automatically reconfigured by the SDN control plane. Meanwhile, experimental results validate that the prio…
Edge intelligence leverages computing resources on network edge to provide artificial intelligence (AI) services close to network users. As it enables fast inference and distributed learning, edge intelligence is envisioned to be an important component of 6G networks. In this article, we investigate AI service provisioning for supporting edge intelligence. First, we present the features and requirements of AI services. Then, we introduce AI service data management, and customize network slicing for AI services. Specifically, we propose a novel resource pooling method to jointly manage service …
5G and edge computing will serve various emerging use cases that have diverse requirements of multiple resources, e.g., radio, transportation, and computing. Network slicing is a promising technology for creating virtual networks that can be customized according to the requirements of different use cases. Provisioning network slices requires end-to-end resource orchestration which is challenging. In this paper, we design a decentralized resource orchestration system named EdgeSlice for dynamic end-to-end network slicing. EdgeSlice introduces a new decentralized deep reinforcement learning (D-D…
Intelligent Data-Driven Architectural Features Orchestration for Network Slicing
Universidade Federal de Viçosa (UFV)（维索萨联邦大学）；Universidade Federal de Uberlândia (UFU)（乌贝兰迪亚联邦大学）；Universidade do Minho（米尼奥大学）；Universidade de São Paulo (USP)（圣保罗大学）；Universidade Salvador (UNIFACS)（萨尔瓦多大学）
Network slicing enables multiple virtual networks to be instantiated and customized to meet heterogeneous use case requirements over 5G and beyond network deployments. However, most of the solutions available today face scalability issues when considering many slices, due to centralized controllers requiring a holistic view of the resource availability and consumption over different networking domains. In order to tackle this challenge, we design a hierarchical architecture to manage network slices resources in a federated manner. Driven by the rapid evolution of deep reinforcement learning (D…
There are a large number of vertical industries implementing multiple use cases, each use case characterized by diverging service, network, and connectivity requirements such as automobile, manufacturing, power grid, etc. Such heterogeneity cannot be effectively managed and efficiently mapped onto a single type of network slice instance (NSI). Thus the tailored provisioning of an end-to-end network slicing solution to a vertical industry that consists of multiple use cases is a critical issue, which motivates this article, aimed at exploring this never-addressed and challenging research proble…
Enterprises want their in-cloud services to leverage the performance and security benefits that middleboxes offer in traditional deployments. Such virtualized deployments create new opportunities (e.g., flexible scaling) as well as new challenges (e.g., dynamics, multiplexing) for middlebox management tasks such as service composition and provisioning. Unfortunately, enterprises lack systematic tools to efficiently compose and provision in-the-cloud middleboxes and thus fall short of achieving the benefits that cloud-based deployments can offer. To this end, we present the design and implement…
With network slicing in 5G networks, Mobile Network Operators can create various slices for Service Providers (SPs) to accommodate customized services. Usually, the various Service Function Chains (SFCs) belonging to a slice are deployed on a best-effort basis. Nothing ensures that the Infrastructure Provider (InP) will be able to allocate enough resources to cope with the increasing demands of some SP. Moreover, in many situations, slices have to be deployed over some geographical area: coverage as well as minimum per-user rate constraints have then to be taken into account. This paper takes …
Technische Universität Kaiserslautern（卡尔斯鲁厄理工大学）；NEC Laboratories Europe GmbH.（欧洲电气股份有限公司实验室）
Network Slicing is expected to become a game changer in the upcoming 5G networks and beyond, enlarging the telecom business ecosystem through still-unexplored vertical industry profits. This implies that heterogeneous service level agreements (SLAs) must be guaranteed per slice given the multitude of predefined requirements. In this paper, we pioneer a novel radio slicing orchestration solution that simultaneously provides-latency and throughput guarantees in a multi-tenancy environment. Leveraging on a solid mathematical framework, we exploit the exploration-vs-exploitation paradigm by means …
The cellular device explosion in the past few decades has created many different opportunities for development for future generations. The 5G network offers a greater speed in the transmissions, a lower latency, and therefore greater capacity for remote execution. The benefits of AI for 5G network slicing orchestration and management will be discussed in this survey paper. We will study these topics in light of the EU-funded MonB5G project that works towards providing zero-touch management and orchestration in the support of network slicing at massive scales for 5G LTE and beyond.
In 5G networks, slicing allows partitioning of network resources to meet stringent end-to-end service requirements across multiple network segments, from access to transport. These requirements are shaping technical evolution in each of these segments. In particular, the transport segment is currently evolving in the direction of the so-called elastic optical networks (EONs), a new generation of optical networks supporting a flexible optical-spectrum grid and novel elastic transponder capabilities. In this paper, we focus on the reliability of 5G transport-network slices in EON. Specifically, …
5G technology complements the enabling of communication services for different vertical industries such as smart distribution grids. Automation is an integral and necessary part of the power distribution grid operation and management. This paper postulates a framework by which the smart distribution grid can obtain service-oriented communication services using 5G network slicing and intent-based networking (IBN). IBN provides an interface to service users and network stakeholders to cooperate through a high level abstraction model of service provisioning in a network agnostic manner. The autom…
Network slicing is a proposing technology to support diverse services from mobile users (MUs) over a common physical network infrastructure. In this paper, we consider radio access network (RAN)-only slicing, where the physical RAN is tailored to accommodate both computation and communication functionalities. Multiple service providers (SPs, i.e., multiple tenants) compete with each other to bid for a limited number of channels across the scheduling slots, aiming to provide their subscribed MUs the opportunities to access the RAN slices. An eavesdropper overhears data transmissions from the MU…
The combination of recent emerging technologies such as network function virtualization (NFV) and network programmability (SDN) gave birth to the novel Network Slicing paradigm. 5G networks consist of multi-tenant infrastructures capable of offering leased network "slices" to new customers (e.g., vertical industries) enabling a new telecom business model: Slice-as-a-Service (SlaaS). However, as the service demand gets increasingly dense, slice requests congestion may occur leading to undesired waiting periods. This may turn into impatient tenant behaviors that increase potential loss of the bu…
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 is one of the key features for 5G networks to be able to accommodate the anticipated diversity of applications and business actors in a resource-efficient manner. While significant progress has already been achieved at 3GPP specifications level with regard to the system architectural and functional aspects for the realisation of network slicing in 5G networks, management solutions for the exploitation of this feature in the Next Generation Radio Access Network (NG-RAN) are still at a very incipient stage. In this context, this paper presents a framework for the management of ne…
Network slicing is a fundamental feature of 5G systems to partition a single network into a number of segregated logical networks, each optimized for a particular type of service, or dedicated to a particular customer or application. The realization of network slicing is particularly challenging in the Radio Access Network (RAN) part, where multiple slices can be multiplexed over the same radio channel and Radio Resource Management (RRM) functions shall be used to split the cell radio resources and achieve the expected behaviour per slice. In this context, this paper describes the key design a…
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
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…
Network slicing has been considered as one of the key enablers for 5G to support diversified IoT services and application scenarios. This paper studies the distributed network slicing for a massive scale IoT network supported by 5G with fog computing. Multiple services with various requirements need to be supported by both spectrum resource offered by 5G network and computational resourc of the fog computing network. We propose a novel distributed framework based on a new control plane entity, federated-orchestrator , which can coordinate the spectrum and computational resources without requir…
The future 5G transport networks are envisioned to support a variety of vertical services through network slicing and efficient orchestration over multiple administrative domains. In this paper, we propose an orchestrator architecture to support vertical services to meet their diverse resource and service requirements. We then present a system model for resource orchestration of transport networks as well as low-complexity algorithms that aim at minimizing service deployment cost and/or service latency. Importantly, the proposed model can work with any level of abstractions exposed by the unde…
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…
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…
Network slicing aims to shape 5G as a flexible, scalable, and demand-oriented network. Research communities deploy small-scale and cost-efficient testbeds in order to evaluate network slicing functionalities. We introduce a novel testbed, called 5GIIK, that provides implementation, management, and orchestration of network slices across all network domains and different access technologies. Our methodology identifies design criteria that are a superset of the features present in other state-of-the-art testbeds and determines appropriate open-source tools for implementing them. 5GIIK is one of t…
Recent studies show the increasing popularity of distributed cloud applications, which are composed of multiple microservices. Besides their known benefits, microservice architecture also enables to mix and match cloud applications and Network Function Virtualization (NFV) services (service chains), which are composed of Virtual Network Functions (VNFs). Provisioning complex services containing VNFs and microservices in a combined NFV/cloud platform can enhance service quality and optimise cost. Such a platform can be based on the multi-cloud concept. However, current multi-cloud solutions do …
In conventional large-scale networks, creation and management of network services are costly and complex tasks that often consume a lot of resources, including time and manpower. Network softwarization and network function virtualization have been introduced to tackle these problems. They replace the hardware-based network service components and network control mechanisms with software components running on general-purpose hardware, aiming at decreasing costs and complexity of implementing new services, maintaining the implemented services, and managing available resources in service provision…
With the cellular networks becoming increasingly agile, a major challenge lies in how to support diverse services for mobile users (MUs) over a common physical network infrastructure. Network slicing is a promising solution to tailor the network to match such service requests. This paper considers a system with radio access network (RAN)-only slicing, where the physical infrastructure is split into slices providing computation and communication functionalities. A limited number of channels are auctioned across scheduling slots to MUs of multiple service providers (SPs) (i.e., the tenants). Eac…
Next generation wireless communications networks will leverage software-defined radio and networking technologies, combined with cloud and fog computing. A pool of resources can then be dynamically allocated to create personalized network services (NSs). The enabling technologies are abstraction, virtualization and consolidation of resources, automatization of processes, and programmatic provisioning and orchestration. ETSI's network functions virtualization (NFV) management and orchestration (MANO) framework provides the architecture and specifications of the management layers. We introduce O…
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…
Network slicing of multi-access edge computing (MEC) resources is expected to be a pivotal technology to the success of 5G networks and beyond. The key challenge that sets MEC slicing apart from traditional resource allocation problems is that edge nodes depend on tightly-intertwined and strictly-constrained networking, computation and storage resources. Therefore, instantiating MEC slices without incurring in resource over-provisioning is hardly addressable with existing slicing algorithms. The main innovation of this paper is Sl-EDGE, a unified MEC slicing framework that allows network opera…
AI-driven Orchestration at Scale: Estimating Service Metrics on National-Wide Testbeds
Federal University of Viçosa (UFV)（佛罗里达大学维索萨分校）；Federal University of Uberlândia (UFU)（联邦乌贝利亚大学）；Salvador University (UNIFACS)（萨尔瓦多大学）；University of São Paulo (USP)（圣保罗大学）；University of Minho (UMinho)（明霍大学）
Novel use cases and verticals such as connected cars and human-robot cooperation in the areas of 5G and Tactile Internet can significantly benefit from the flexibility and reduced latency provided by Network Function Virtualization (NFV) and Multi-Access Edge Computing (MEC). Existing frameworks managing and orchestrating MEC and NFV are either tightly coupled or completely separated. The former design is inflexible and increases the complexity of one framework. Whereas, the latter leads to inefficient use of computation resources because information are not shared. We introduce APMEC, a dedic…
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…
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…
King’s College London（伦敦国王学院）；Aalborg University（奥尔堡大学）
Network Slicing (NS) is crucial for efficiently enabling divergent network applications in next generation networks. Nonetheless, the complex Quality of Service (QoS) requirements and diverse heterogeneity in network services entails high computational time for Network Slice Provisioning (NSP) optimization. The legacy optimization methods are challenging to meet the low latency and high reliability of network applications. To this end, we model the real-time NSP as an Online Network Slice Provisioning (ONSP) problem. Specifically, we formulate the ONSP problem as an online Multi-Objective Inte…
Growing traffic demands and increasing security awareness are driving the need for secure services. Current solutions require manual configuration and deployment based on the customer's requirements. In this work, we present an architecture for an automatic intent-based provisioning of a secure service in a multilayer - IP, Ethernet, and optical - network while choosing the appropriate encryption layer using an open-source software-defined networking (SDN) orchestrator. The approach is experimentally evaluated in a testbed with commercial equipment. Results indicate that the processing impact …
To harness the full potential of beyond 5G (B5G) communication systems, zero-touch network slicing (NS) is viewed as a promising fully-automated management and orchestration (MANO) system. This paper proposes a novel knowledge plane (KP)-based MANO framework that accommodates and exploits recent NS technologies and is termed KB5G. Specifically, we deliberate on algorithmic innovation and artificial intelligence (AI) in KB5G. We invoke a continuous model-free deep reinforcement learning (DRL) method to minimize energy consumption and virtual network function (VNF) instantiation cost. We present…
In this paper, an Air-Ground Integrated VEhicular Network (AGIVEN) architecture is proposed, where the aerial High Altitude Platforms (HAPs) proactively push contents to vehicles through large-area broadcast while the ground roadside units (RSUs) provide high-rate unicast services on demand. To efficiently manage the multi-dimensional heterogeneous resources, a service-oriented network slicing approach is introduced, where the AGIVEN is virtually divided into multiple slices and each slice supports a specific application with guaranteed quality of service (QoS). Specifically, the fundamental p…
In this paper, we provide a comprehensive review and updated solutions related to 5G network slicing using SDN and NFV. Firstly, we present 5G service quality and business requirements followed by a description of 5G network softwarization and slicing paradigms including essential concepts, history and different use cases. Secondly, we provide a tutorial of 5G network slicing technology enablers including SDN, NFV, MEC, cloud/Fog computing, network hypervisors, virtual machines & containers. Thidly, we comprehensively survey different industrial initiatives and projects that are pushing forwar…
Intent-based networking (IBN) provides a promising approach for managing networks and orchestrating services in beyond 5G (B5G) deployments using modern service-based architectures. Public safety (PS) services form the basis of keeping society functional, owing to the responsiveness and availability throughout the network. The provisioning of these services requires efficient and agile network management techniques with low-overhead and embedded intelligence. IBN incorporates the service subscribers in a model-driven approach to provision different user-centric services. However, it requires d…
ORION: Intent-Aware Orchestration in Open RAN for SLA-Driven Network Management
National Telecommunications Institute (INATEL)（国家电信研究所）；University of Vale do Rio dos Sinos (UNISINOS)（里奥多斯西诺斯谷大学）；Federal Technological University of Paraná (UFTPR)（巴拉那联邦技术大学）
Artificial intelligence (AI)-driven zero-touch network slicing (NS) is a new paradigm enabling the automation of resource management and orchestration (MANO) in multi-tenant beyond 5G (B5G) networks. In this paper, we tackle the problem of cloud-RAN (C-RAN) joint slice admission control and resource allocation by first formulating it as a Markov decision process (MDP). We then invoke an advanced continuous deep reinforcement learning (DRL) method called twin delayed deep deterministic policy gradient (TD3) to solve it. In this intent, we introduce a multi-objective approach to make the central…
Artificial intelligence (AI)-driven zero-touch network slicing is envisaged as a promising cutting-edge technology to harness the full potential of heterogeneous 5G and beyond 5G (B5G) communication systems and enable the automation of demand-aware resource management and orchestration (MANO). In this paper, we tackle the issue of B5G radio access network (RAN) joint slice admission control and resource allocation according to proposed slice-enabling cell-free massive multiple-input multiple-output (mMIMO) setup by invoking a continuous deep reinforcement learning (DRL) method. We present a no…
The envisioned 6G networks are expected to support extremely high data rates, low-latency, and radically new applications empowered by machine learning. The futuristic 6G networks require a novel framework that can be used to operate, manage, and optimize its underlying services such as ultra-reliable and low-latency communication, and Internet of everything. In recent years, artificial intelligence (AI) has demonstrated significant success in optimizing and designing networks. The AI-enabled traffic orchestration can dynamically organize different network architectures and slices to provide q…
Conflict-Aware Autonomous Resource Orchestration for 5G Edge Slicing Using Multi-Agent Systems and LLMs
Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul (UFRGS)（南里奥格兰德联邦大学）；Federal University of Viçosa (UFV)（维索卡联邦大学）；University of São Paulo (USP)（圣保罗大学）；University of Minho (UMinho)（米尼奥大学）
