Enhancing a 5G Network Slicing Management Model to Improve the Support of Mobile Virtual Network Operators

Network slicing is a key element in 5G networks. It allows a mobile network operator (MNO) to offer multiple logical networks tailored to the requirements of different industry verticals over a shared infrastructure. From the point of view of an MNO, a mobile virtual network operator (MVNO) is a par...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:IEEE access 2021, Vol.9, p.131382-131399
Main Authors: Cardenas, Andres, Fernandez, David, Lentisco, Carlos M., Moyano, Ricardo Flores, Bellido, Luis
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
3GPP
5G mobile communication
Computational modeling
Computer architecture
Customization
Infrastructure
multiaccess edge computing
network function virtualization
Network slicing
Object oriented modeling
Proposals
software-defined networks
Virtual networks
virtualized network function orchestration
Wireless networks
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Summary:Network slicing is a key element in 5G networks. It allows a mobile network operator (MNO) to offer multiple logical networks tailored to the requirements of different industry verticals over a shared infrastructure. From the point of view of an MNO, a mobile virtual network operator (MVNO) is a particular type of vertical network requiring not only the provision of logical networks with specific infrastructure resources but also customized management capabilities to allow the MVNO to offer network slice-based services to its clients over the infrastructure of multiple MNOs. However, the lack of flexibility to provide a customized and efficient network slice management system per tenant under the current proposals of the 3rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) and European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI) limits the possibilities of MVNOs. This paper addresses this requirement by proposing a novel virtualized multidomain and multiclient orchestration system aligned with the functionalities of the network slicing management framework proposed by the 3GPP and ETSI. In particular, there are three contributions of this paper: (i) an extended service-based architecture is designed to provide an isolated management system to different MVNOs; (ii) a novel high-level slice instance template is defined to specify management and isolation requirements supporting network slicing as a service model; and (iii) finally, a teleoperated driving use case is described to showcase how our proposal provides an MVNO with an independent management system to orchestrate several network slices in cross-domain environments.
ISSN:2169-3536
2169-3536
DOI:10.1109/ACCESS.2021.3114645