Network Slicing Management Technique for Local 5G Micro-Operator Deployments

Abstract

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 slicing will enable a 5G micro-operator network to efficiently serve the multiple verticals and their tenants with different network requirements. This paper addresses how network slicing management functions can be used to implement, orchestrate and manage network slicing in different deployments of a local 5G micro-operator including the serving of closed, open and mixed customer groups. The paper proposes a descriptive technique by which different network slicing management functionalities defined by 3GPP can be used in coordination to create, orchestrate and manage network slicing for different deployment scenarios of a microoperator. This is based on the network slice instance configuration type that can exist for each scenario. A network slice formation sequence is developed for the closed micro operator network to illustrate the tasks of the management functions. The results indicate that network slicing management plays a key role in designing local 5G networks that can serve different customer groups in the verticals.

Atlas: Automate Online Service Configuration in Network Slicing

“…Network slicing. Consider a mobile network operator aims to support a new slice requested by a slice tenant 4 , where the slice requires multiple dedicated virtual network resources in different technical domains, e.g., RAN, TN, and edge computing. The slice tenant makes a service-level agreement (SLA) with the network operator, where the SLA defines several key requirements of its service performance, e.g., latency, reliability and availability.…”

“…Each network slice can be highly customized according to the needs of individual slice tenants [3], e.g., throughput per slice user, delay, and quality of service (QoS). As emerging services are increasingly focusing on end-to-end performances, e.g., round-trip latency, end-to-end slicing is more than ever needed, which consists of the subnet instance [4] in radio access networks (RAN), transport networks (TN), core networks (CN), and edge networks (EN).…”

End-to-end network slice architecture and distribution across 5G micro-operator leveraging multi-domain and multi-tenancy

“…Type 2 is targeted at tenants with less latency requirements, such that the slice instance is formed with shared constituents of NSSIs or NFs between tenants within the same micro-operator network [32]. Type 3 [31] involves slice instances where there can be shared constituents of NSSIs or NFs between the micro-operator network and the MNO network. Type 3 is available for tenants that require external network resources for services such as wide area access, remote monitoring and roaming.…”

“…The 5G network slice broker resides with the network Fig. 4 NSI configuration types for micro-operator deployment scenarios [4,31]. This figure show the mapping of different NSI configuration types for each deployment scenario of a micro-operator provider or the infrastructure provider, where all the required interfaces and functionalities are detailed.…”

Identifying Requirements Affecting Latency in a Softwarized Network for Future 5G and Beyond

“…The sharing of a VNF can definitely affect the overall latency of the network considering requirements such as the establishment or connection time, and deployment time of the VNF. Authors in [21], [23] show how shared and non-shared constituents of a network slice can be used to categorize network slicing in a micro-operator. In the same fashion, we show the impact of shared and nonshared VNFs on the overall deployment time and establishment time of a VNF.…”