Dynamic Resource Trading in Sliced Mobile Networks

open3Expanding the market of mobile network services and defining solutions that are cost efficient are the key challenges for next generation mobile networks. Network slicing is commonly considered to be the main instrument to exploit the flexibility of the new radio interface and core network functions. It targets splitting resources among services with different requirements and tailoring system parameters according to their needs. Regulation authorities also recognize network slicing as a way of opening the market to new players who can specialize in providing new mobile services acting as 'tenants' of the slices. Resources can also be distributed between infrastructure providers and tenants so that they meet the requirements of the services offered. In this paper, we propose a model for dynamic trading of mobile network resources in a market that enables automatic optimization of technical parameters and of economic prices according to high level policies defined by the tenants. We introduce a mathematical formulation for the problems of resource allocation and price definition and show how the proposed approach can cope with quite diverse service scenarios presenting a large set of numerical results.openAkgul, Ozgur Umut*; Malanchini, Ilaria; Capone, AntonioAkgul, Ozgur Umut; Malanchini, Ilaria; Capone, Antoni

Efficient Resource Allocation and Spectrum Trading for Virtualized Multi-tenant 5G Networks

The huge increase of mobile devices and user data demand has initiated efforts for more efficient mobile network solutions. To this direction, virtualization has attracted much attention as a promising solution for higher resource utilization and improved system performance. Therefore, basic on-demand wireless resource allocation approaches among multiple tenants are investigated. Taking also into consideration two contrasting terms, the spectrum scarcity and the spectrum underutilization, this work proposes spectrum trading among frequency owners and tenants, enabling dynamic spectrum access and optimal management

NOMA based resource allocation and mobility enhancement framework for IoT in next generation cellular networks

With the unprecedented technological advances witnessed in the last two decades, more devices are connected to the internet, forming what is called internet of things (IoT). IoT devices with heterogeneous characteristics and quality of experience (QoE) requirements may engage in dynamic spectrum market due to scarcity of radio resources. We propose a framework to efficiently quantify and supply radio resources to the IoT devices by developing intelligent systems. The primary goal of the paper is to study the characteristics of the next generation of cellular networks with non-orthogonal multiple access (NOMA) to enable connectivity to clustered IoT devices. First, we demonstrate how the distribution and QoE requirements of IoT devices impact the required number of radio resources in real time. Second, we prove that using an extended auction algorithm by implementing a series of complementary functions, enhance the radio resource utilization efficiency. The results show substantial reduction in the number of sub-carriers required when compared to conventional orthogonal multiple access (OMA) and the intelligent clustering is scalable and adaptable to the cellular environment. Ability to move spectrum usages from one cluster to other clusters after borrowing when a cluster has less user or move out of the boundary is another soft feature that contributes to the reported radio resource utilization efficiency. Moreover, the proposed framework provides IoT service providers cost estimation to control their spectrum acquisition to achieve required quality of service (QoS) with guaranteed bit rate (GBR) and non-guaranteed bit rate (Non-GBR)

NSBchain: A Secure Blockchain Framework for Network Slicing Brokerage

With the advent of revolutionary technologies, such as virtualization and softwarization, a novel concept for 5G networks and beyond has been unveiled: Network Slicing. Initially driven by the research community, standardization bodies as 3GPP have embraced it as a promising solution to revolutionize the traditional mobile telecommunication market by enabling new business models opportunities. Network Slicing is envisioned to open up the telecom market to new players such as Industry Verticals, e.g. automotive, smart factories, e-health, etc. Given the large number of potential new business players, dubbed as network tenants, novel solutions are required to accommodate their needs in a cost-efficient and secure manner. In this paper, we propose NSBchain, a novel network slicing brokering (NSB) solution, which leverages on the widely adopted Blockchain technology to address the new business models needs beyond traditional network sharing agreements. NSBchain defines a new entity, the Intermediate Broker (IB), which enables Infrastructure Providers (InPs) to allocate network resources to IBs through smart contracts and IBs to assign and re-distribute their resources among tenants in a secure, automated and scalable manner. We conducted an extensive performance evaluation by means of an open-source blockchain platform that proves the feasibility of our proposed framework considering a large number of tenants and two different consensus algorithms

Orchestration of Crosshaul slices from federated administrative domains

Proceeding of: 2016 European Conference on Networks and Communications (EuCNC)With the advent of 5G networks, more dynamicity and flexibility will be needed for the deployment of services with very distinct requirements. Crosshaul areas (those integrating fronthaul and backhaul) are especially critical because of the variability of the demand and the cost of the (own) network deployment, which in many cases is jeopardized by the huge level of investment needed. A common market place to trade the required networking and computing facilities (in the form of a slice) in a multi-domain federated environment is envisaged as the solution for easing the adaptation to future demands. This paper proposes to develop the concept of multi-domain Crosshaul by enabling the dynamic request of Crosshaul slices through a multi-provider exchange.This work has been supported by the European Community through the projects 5GEx (grant no. 671636) and 5GCrosshaul (grant no. 671598) within the H2020 programme

Resource sharing efficiency in network slicing

The economic sustainability of future mobile networks will largely depend on the strong specialization of its offered services. Network operators will need to provide added value to their tenants, by moving from the traditional one-size-fits-all strategy to a set of virtual end-to-end instances of a common physical infrastructure, named network slices , which are especially tailored to the requirements of each application. Implementing network slicing has significant consequences in terms of resource management: service customization entails assigning to each slice fully dedicated resources, which may also be dynamically reassigned and overbooked in order to increase the cost-efficiency of the system. In this paper, we adopt a data-driven approach to quantify the efficiency of resource sharing in future sliced networks. Building on metropolitan-scale real-world traffic measurements, we carry out an extensive parametric analysis that highlights how diverse performance guarantees, technological settings, and slice configurations impact the resource utilization at different levels of the infrastructure in presence of network slicing. Our results provide insights on the achievable efficiency of network slicing architectures, their dimensioning, and their interplay with resource management algorithms at different locations and reconfiguration timescales.The work of University Carlos III of Madrid was supported by the H2020 5G-MoNArch project (Grant Agreement No. 761445) and the work of NEC Laboratories Europe by the 5GTransformer project (Grant Agreement No. 761536). The work of CNR-IEIIT was partially supported by the ANR CANCAN project (ANR-18-CE25-0011).Publicad

Enhancing Network Slicing Architectures with Machine Learning, Security, Sustainability and Experimental Networks Integration

Network Slicing (NS) is an essential technique extensively used in 5G networks computing strategies, mobile edge computing, mobile cloud computing, and verticals like the Internet of Vehicles and industrial IoT, among others. NS is foreseen as one of the leading enablers for 6G futuristic and highly demanding applications since it allows the optimization and customization of scarce and disputed resources among dynamic, demanding clients with highly distinct application requirements. Various standardization organizations, like 3GPP's proposal for new generation networks and state-of-the-art 5G/6G research projects, are proposing new NS architectures. However, new NS architectures have to deal with an extensive range of requirements that inherently result in having NS architecture proposals typically fulfilling the needs of specific sets of domains with commonalities. The Slicing Future Internet Infrastructures (SFI2) architecture proposal explores the gap resulting from the diversity of NS architectures target domains by proposing a new NS reference architecture with a defined focus on integrating experimental networks and enhancing the NS architecture with Machine Learning (ML) native optimizations, energy-efficient slicing, and slicing-tailored security functionalities. The SFI2 architectural main contribution includes the utilization of the slice-as-a-service paradigm for end-to-end orchestration of resources across multi-domains and multi-technology experimental networks. In addition, the SFI2 reference architecture instantiations will enhance the multi-domain and multi-technology integrated experimental network deployment with native ML optimization, energy-efficient aware slicing, and slicing-tailored security functionalities for the practical domain.Comment: 10 pages, 11 figure