Slice Orchestration for Multi-Service Disaggregated Ultra-Dense RANs

Abstract

Ultra Dense Networks (UDNs) are a natural deployment evolution for handling the tremendous traffic increase related to the emerging 5G services, especially in urban environments. However, the associated infrastructure cost may become prohibitive. The evolving paradigm of network slicing can tackle such a challenge while optimizing the network resource usage, enabling multi-tenancy and facilitating resource sharing and efficient service-oriented communications. Indeed, network slicing in UDN deployments can offer the desired degree of customization in both vanilla Radio Access Network (RAN) designs, but also in the case of disaggregated multi-service RANs. In this article, we devise a novel multi-service RAN environment, i.e., RAN runtime, capable to support slice orchestration procedures and to enable flexible customization of slices as per tenant needs. Each network slice can exploit a number of services, which can either be dedicated or shared between multiple slices over a common RAN. The novel architecture we present concentrates on the orchestration and management systems. It interacts with the RAN modules, through the RAN runtime, via a number of new interfaces enabling a customized dedicated orchestration logic for each slice. We present results for a disaggregated UDN deployment where the RAN runtime is used to support slice-based multi-service chain creation and chain placement, with an auto-scaling mechanism to increase the performance.

Performance Analysis of Local 5G Operator Architectures for Industrial Internet

“…With network slicing, network usage can be optimized by serving different types of communications via different slices than serving them with just one network. 3GPP introduces three management functions for creating and managing network slices in 5G networks called communication service management function (CSMF), network slice management function (NSMF), and network slice subnet management function (NSSMF) [21], [22].…”

On the evolution of infrastructure sharing in mobile networks: A survey

“…In the context of enabling network slicing in 5G networks, there is a myriad of papers that propose architectures or test prototypes based on (i) NFV and/or SDN (see e.g, [35,36,85,86,113,119]), (ii) changes to the RAN protocol stack (see e.g., [48,116,124]), or (iii) using features of the new 5G radio ( [44]) etc. In particular, the work in [29] proposes an architecture to support network slicing in ultra-dense networks, the one in [74] presents an architecture that supports Internet Of Things (IoT) slices whereas the one in [129] dwells on combining 3GPP specifications for 5G with NFV.…”

Expanding GÉANT Testbeds Service to Support Pan-European 5G Network Slices for Research in the EuWireless Project

“…e project targets three main use cases: the smart grid oriented to the energy vertical, the eHealth with connected ambulances, and the smart city use case. In [5], SLICENET presents results for a disaggregated Ultra-Dense Network deployment with slicing capabilities based on the RAN runtime. e 5G-EmPOWER open platform [27] targets an open ecosystem where new 5G services can be tested in realistic conditions.…”

“…SDR allows recreating base stations and other radio elements of the network with commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) components placed inside a computer. In addition, several open-source projects [4,5] were created to provide the elements of the core network by implementing the published standards directly in software. Nevertheless, SDR technology is not able to achieve the radio performance of the real equipment, and the different software solutions are still unstable or do not provide all the characteristic of the commercial ones.…”