Abstract
The fifth-generation mobile network presents a wide range of services which have different requirements in terms of performance, bandwidth, reliability, and latency. The legacy networks are not capable to handle these diverse services with the same physical infrastructure. In this way, network virtualization presents a reliable solution named network slicing that supports service heterogeneity and provides differentiated resources to each service. Network slicing enables network operators to create multiple logical networks over a common physical infrastructure. In this research article, we have designed and implemented an intent-based network slicing system that can slice and manage the core network and radio access network (RAN) resources efficiently. It is an automated system, where users just need to provide higher-level network configurations in the form of intents/contracts for a network slice, and in return, our system deploys and configures the requested resources accordingly. Further, our system grants the automation of the network configurations process and reduces the manual effort. It has an intent-based networking (IBN) tool which can control, manage, and monitor the network slice resources properly. Moreover, a deep learning model, the generative adversarial neural network (GAN), has been used for the management of network resources. Several tests have been carried out with our system by creating three slices, which shows better performance in terms of bandwidth and latency.
Highlights
It is expected that the fifth-generation mobile network (5G) can cover a wide range of industrial use cases and improve network performance significantly
We develop a specific radio access network (RAN) slicing policy configurator for access network to convert the high-level slice configuration provided at the intent-based networking (IBN) tool to JSON slice template format and send it to the underlying
After that these contracts are translated with the help of both policy configurators into a JSON format string for Open-Source Mano (OSM) and FlexRAN respectively
Summary
It is expected that the fifth-generation mobile network (5G) can cover a wide range of industrial use cases and improve network performance significantly. The current mobile networks are no more efficient at handling the multi-service demands and providing different qualities of service (QoS) to their users [1]. The virtualized and programmable nature of the 5G mobile network is the best and most cost-effective solution for ensuring on-demand services. Network slicing is an important feature of the 5G network that allows you to create multiple isolated logical networks, referred to as slices over the same physical infrastructure, for the mission of supporting multiple use cases, with diverse service requirements. Just as 3G and 4G mobile networks revolutionized social behavior by enabling social networking on mobile phones, the 5G mobile network is expected to connect everything, our environment, our businesses, our cities, and our industries will be revolutionized.
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