Scheduling of Low Latency Services in Softwarized Networks

In this chapter, we present a comprehensive end-to-end (E2E) network slicing framework for fifth-generation (5G) wireless and core networks and provide our vision on network slicing for beyond 5G (B5G) networks using artificial intelligence (AI) technologies. We first give an introduction on the 5G communication networks by specifying distinct 5G networking characteristics. As the key features of 5G pose challenges on quality-of-service (QoS)-oriented resource provisioning, a new concept of network slicing is presented, based on software-defined networking (SDN) and network function virtualization (NFV) technologies, to enhance the overall resource utilization while guaranteeing QoS isolation among services. We focus on developing specific network slicing solutions for both 5G wireless networks and core networks. In addition, the evolution of B5G networks is discussed in terms of a potential networking paradigm shift with new service key performance indicators (KPIs). To satisfy B5G service requirements, a framework of AI-assisted network slicing lifecycle is developed to automate the slice creation with reduced slice management complexity. A case study is presented to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed E2E network slicing solutions.Keywords5G communication networksNetwork slicingWireless networksRadio resource slicingCore networksComputing and transmission resource slicingBeyond 5G networksAI-assisted network slicingQoSE2E delay

Research Subject - integration of software-defined networks (SDN) and network functions virtualization (NFV) technologies in the unmanned aerial vehicle networks. Method – analysis of standards and recommendations in the field of SDN, NFV technologies and construction of UAV networks. Core results – presents the main advantages of introducing SDN and NFV technologies into the UAV networks, two ways of organizing the UAV network architecture with SDN technology support: when the Base Station performs the functions of an SDN controller, and when air baluns are used as SDN controllers. This paper also compared the technologies of software-defined networking and virtualization of network functions. Practical relevance – this paper provides a detailed description of the structure and application possibilities of UAV networks, functional diagrams of SDN and NFV. The network architectures presented in this paper using SDN controllers in the flying (air balloon) and ground (Base stations) segment are examples of the implementation of SDN technology in a UAV network.of SDN and NFV technologies, and also considers the application of these technologies in UAV networks.

In order to meet the traffic demand from diverse next generation wireless network applications and exponentially increasing mobile subscriptions, various 5G network architectures are proposed by leveraging Software Defined Networking (SDN) and Network Function Virtualization (NFV) technologies. Network slicing will be one of the 5G technologies that would support next-generation wireless applications over a shared network infrastructure. However, improper network slicing may lead to either over-provisioning or under-utilization of the underlying network infrastructure resources, especially the 5G core network. Over-provisioning of data plane components such as Serving Gateway (SGW) and Packet Data Network Gateway (PGW) can lead to higher CAPEX and OPEX to mobile operators. In this paper, we propose a novel auto-scaling approach called Bit rate Aware Auto Scaling (BAAS) that maintains a precise UE bit rate requirement in the network slices without over-provisioning of data plane resources.

5G networks represent a paradigm shift from their 4G predecessors, engineered to cater to the burgeoning demands of densely populated areas and the high data throughput requirements of the Internet of Things (IoT) and smart city infrastructures. Beyond enhancing fundamental network attributes such as reliability, availability, and security, 5G introduces architectural innovations to accommodate these advanced needs. This paper delves into the architectural nuances of 5G, focusing primarily on the Standalone (SA) deployment method, distinguished by its utilization of network slicing. This approach leverages cutting-edge virtual network technologies, including Software-Defined Networking (SDN) and Network Function Virtualization (NFV), to forge virtual network slices tailored to diverse consumer needs. Such customization is imperative for meeting the expansive and varied connectivity demands characteristic of 5G networks.To navigate the complexities of 5G architecture, this study advocates for the adoption of Reference Architectures (RAs), which provide a high-level abstraction framework for dissecting and understanding intricate systems. By proposing a model that outlines the standalone architecture of 5G networks, our research lays the groundwork for evolving this model into a comprehensive RA for 5G. This foundational work is instrumental in equipping system designers with the tools necessary for generalizing systems to manage design and deployment challenges effectively, as well as the heterogeneity inherent in system components. Additionally, our proposed model facilitates the establishment of a common vocabulary, promoting a coherent understanding of component interactions and offering a unified system perspective. Ultimately, this paper contributes a pivotal model that not only enhances our comprehension of 5G network architecture but also paves the way for future advancements in network design and deployment, promising to significantly impact the development of smart cities and IoT ecosystems.Keywords: 5G, 5G architecture, Reference architecture, patterns. Network slicing, Network Function Virtualization, Virtual Network Function.

In 5G networks, the deployment of network slices enabled by Software-Defined Networking (SDN) is becoming a critical component for delivering tailored services to meet diverse application needs. However, this introduces challenges in network management, particularly in efficiently allocating resources to ensure that each network slice meets its specific Quality of Service (QoS) and availability requirements. Simultaneously, it must optimize overall network performance and network operator’s profit, which is linked to the Quality of Experience (QoE) of the end-users. Existing works offer either an availability-based solution or a QoE-aware solution to this problem, but not both. This paper addresses the end-to-end network slice resource allocation problem by simultaneously considering QoS and availability requirements in slice placement, while employing a QoE-aware strategy for resource allocation. We propose a framework that optimizes the network operator profit i.e. the highest QoE with the least resource usage, and can be flexibly configured to model realistic scenarios. Arbitrary network slice requirements can be defined using slice-specific QoS/QoE mapping, resource requirements, end-to-end latency and availability. For solving the formulated problem a Mixed Integer Nonlinear Programming (MINLP) formulation and efficient heuristic methods are proposed. Our solution accounts for the non-linear QoS/QoE relationship, utilizes redundantly placed Service Function Chains (SFCs) to increase availability, and supports the sharing of Virtual Network Functions (VNFs) among SFCs to optimize resource usage. Through extensive simulations on realistic network topologies and slice requests, we demonstrate the framework’s effectiveness in offering flexible and efficient network slice placement and resource allocation, utilizing a baseline heuristic from related studies. The results indicate that while the exact method delivers an optimal solution, heuristic approaches are suitable for time-sensitive tasks, such as dynamic slice configuration.

Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs) have a wide range of applications scenarios in computer vision, from pedestrian detection to robotic visual navigation. In response to the growing visual data services in WSNs, we propose a proactive caching strategy based on Stacked Sparse Autoencoder (SSAE) to predict content popularity (PCDS2AW). Firstly, based on Software Defined Network (SDN) and Network Function Virtualization (NFV) technologies, a distributed deep learning network SSAE is constructed in the sink nodes and control nodes of the WSN network. Then, the SSAE network structure parameters and network model parameters are optimized through training. The proactive cache strategy implementation procedure is divided into four steps. (1) The SDN controller is responsible for dynamically collecting user request data package information in the WSNs network. (2) The SSAEs predicts the packet popularity based on the SDN controller obtaining user request data. (3) The SDN controller generates a corresponding proactive cache strategy according to the popularity prediction result. (4) Implement the proactive caching strategy at the WSNs cache node. In the simulation, we compare the influence of spatiotemporal data on the SSAE network structure. Compared with the classic caching strategy Hash + LRU, Betw + LRU, and classic prediction algorithms SVM and BPNN, the proposed PCDS2AW proactive caching strategy can significantly improve WSN performance.

Network slicing is a key technology in fifth-generation (5G) mobile networks. Slicing divides a physical network into multiple dedicated logical networks to meet the requirements of diverse use cases. Efficient slice deployment algorithms are critical in reducing network operators' costs and energy consumption and in providing users better service. Many researchers have focused on static deployment when investigating network slices, effectively ignoring network operators' requirements for the dynamic deployment and expansion of such slices. In this paper, we first construct a joint optimization problem of cost and energy consumption. Then, we propose a prediction-assisted adaptive network slice expansion algorithm to deploy network slices dynamically. The proposed algorithm consists of three parts. First, we devise a Holt-Winters (HW) prediction algorithm to determine traffic demand for network slices. This method is intended to avoid frequent changes in network topology. Second, we propose a virtual network function (VNF) adaptive scaling strategy to reasonably determine the number of VNFs and resources required for network slices to avoid resource wastage. Finally, we develop a proactive online algorithm to deploy network slices. This method deploys network slices reasonably via the VNF deployment algorithm and link-routing algorithm to ensure slices' service requirements. Resource capacity and delay requirements are also considered in our evaluation to ensure that network costs and energy consumption are minimized. We then perform a series of simulation experiments to compare the proposed method's performance to state-of-the-art dynamic network slicing technologies. Ultimately, our solution is deemed a suitable candidate for dynamic deployment of 5G network slices; the solution demonstrates advantages of high resource utilization, low deployment costs, and low energy consumption.

Innovative technologies, such as Software-Defined Networking (SDN) and Network Functions Virtualization (NFV), are enabling the possibility of managing network infrastructures and their services for enhancing network flexibility, efficient resource control, and cost-efficiency. How to combine these technologies requires taking into account the requirements established by the scenarios being executed, which can change at any time due to their dynamism. Network Slicing appeared to this end. This new technique tailors the needs of a particular scenario whose requirements are extremely heterogeneous and complex. By using Network Slicing, SDN/NFV-enabled environments can be strengthened to manage network resources and services depending on those requirements. Nevertheless, Network Slicing approaches lack management mechanisms that consider the heterogeneity and dynamism provided by scenarios based on future mobile networks. This article presents a formal definition of the Network Slicing information model, where all elements interacting with the Network Slices life cycle are formally represented. Another important contribution is a mobility-aware architecture that combines NFV/SDN techniques and introduces innovative components responsible for managing and orchestrating the Network Slices. Finally, a systematic comparison is made between the existing architectures and the proposed one.

Service Function Chaining (SFC) serves the traffic of a specific service along an ordered set of Service Functions (SFs). SFC uses Software Defined Networking (SDN) and Network Function Virtualization (NFV) technologies to reach the deployment and removal of SFC in an appropriate time with minimal costs. However, during the life time of deployed SFCs, the SFs are exposed to the risk of overloading, which results in an end-to-end packets drop and high delay at the application level. This paper presents the concept of a Scalable SFC Orchestrator capable of deploying SF Chains following the ETSI NFV architectural model, as well as orchestrating the runtime phase by rerouting the traffic to a different path in case of overload of certain SF instances. Moreover, a selection algorithm is presented to build the updated paths after scaling. The Scalable Orchestration feature is implemented and added as a main feature to an SFC Orchestrator. Furthermore, it is integrated into a current NFV architecture and evaluated in an NFV environment making use of the Fraunhofer FOKUS Open Baton toolkit in an OpenStack and Open Daylight based environment.

SDN-based service function chaining mechanism and service prototype implementation in NFV scenario

Network slicing is a promising approach to meet the diverse requirements of the various use cases in the 5G networks. Hence, the mobile operators are moving forward to leveraging network slicing in order to measure up with the individual service expectations in their networks. Deploying different network slice types requires the global view of the network and the automated orchestration and management of the underlying resources. This is facilitated by utilizing software-defined networking and network function virtualization as the 5G key-enabler technologies. In this paper, we propose a practical network slicing resource management scheme which is comprised of a dynamic, priority-based resource allocation cooperating with an admission control unit. Adopting the proposed dynamic resource allocation would allow the admission control to comply with more NS requests while ensuring the desired requirements of the existing network slices. To validate the effectiveness of such a mechanism in a real environment, we take advantage of the features provided by OpenAirInterface and FlexRAN to efficiently manage multiple isolated network slices. In particular, we evaluate the significance of the network slicing, the isolation degree among created slices, and the effectiveness of the proposed scheme through several practical scenarios.

The discovery process of OPC Unified Architecture (OPC-UA) is well defined but lacks flexibility when implemented in large networks. While the standard provides concepts for local and global discovery services, the core assumption is that all clients and servers are aware of the discovery server(s) in the network. This dependency is a barrier for Plug-and-Play installations and is overcome by self announces via the multicast Domain Name System (mDNS), however, this scales badly with an increasing number of network nodes and deployed servers. We propose a discovery approach based on Software-Defined Networking (SDN) and Network Function Virtualization (NFV), that installs a plug-and-play mechanism for global OPC-UA discovery in modern virtualized networks.

Network functions virtualization (NFV) technology is an emerging networking technology in the telecom industry which provides flexible deployment of network services by reducing the Operating Expenses and Capital Expenses. NFV is an innovative step to virtualize network services that usually run on fixed hardware. With the concept of NFV, services like routing, load balancing, deep packet inspectors and firewalls are packaged as virtual network functions (VNFs) on commodity hardware. NFV helps the service provider to flexibly add that service in the form of a virtual machine (VMs) without upgrading or buying a new hardware on the customer end. This allows a faster deployment of the all the network services with new innovations and helps in increasing great opportunities in the field of telecom-networking. This paper provides an information about NFV technology with its characteristics, enabling technologies, benefits, use cases and challenges. NFV architecture and its comparison with Software Defined Networking (SDN) technology is also presented in this survey paper.

Software middlebox-based services can be flexibly managed by software defined networking (SDN) and network function virtualization (NFV). Meanwhile, traffic routing can be simplified and the number of routing rules in the SDN-enabled switches can be reduced through the consolidated middlebox model. However, different network functions in middleboxes may alter the volume of processed traffic, so high congestion may occur in specific bottleneck links if middlebox selection and traffic routing are not well jointly planned. Besides, in a statically switch-controller configured SDN, traffic dynamics will not only affect the link load in the data plane, but also pose a challenge to controller load balancing. Therefore, it’s necessary to achieve better quality-of-service (QoS) performance in both control and data planes. In this article, we first formulate this problem as a joint traffic-aware consolidated middleboxes selection and routing (JTMSR) problem and prove its NP-hardness. Then, we design a two-phase algorithm to achieve the controller and link load balancing where the first phase is to redirect selected flows by applying wildcard rules and the second phase is to find fine-grained routing path by a rounding-based algorithm with bounded approximation factor. Finally, compared with the existing algorithms through extensive simulations, it demonstrates that our method has near-optimal controller load balancing and link load balancing performance and can improve response time by 9.7% compared with static scheme.

Network Slicing (NS) technique is comprehensively reshaping the next-generation communication networks (e.g. 5G, 6G). Software-Defined Networking (SDN) and Network Functions Virtualization (NFV) predominantly control the flow of service functions on NS to incorporate versatile applications as per user demands. In the virtualized-Software Defined Networking vSDN environment, a chain of well-defined virtual network functions (VNFs) are installed on Service Function Chains (SFCs) by multiple Internet Service Providers (ISPs) concurrently. Generation, allocation, re-allocation, release and destroying associative VNFs on SFC is an extremely difficult task while keeping high selection accuracy. Towards solving this fundamental issue, in this work, we have proposed a multi-layered SFC formation for adaptive VNF allocation on dynamic slices. We have formulated an ILP to address the VNF-EAP (VNF-Embedding and Allocation Problem) over real network topology (AT&T Topology). Leveraging machine learning techniques we have shown an intelligent VNF selection mechanism to optimize resource utilization. The performance evaluation shows remarkable efficiency on ML-driven dynamic VNF selections over static allocations on SFCs by halving resource usage. Further, we have also studied a VNF typecasting technique for service backup on outage slices in the field of disaster management activities.