A hierarchical AI-based control plane solution for multitechnology deterministic networks

Following the Industry 4.0 vision of a full digitiSation of the industry, time-critical services and applications, allowing network infrastructures to deliver information with determinism and reliability, are becoming more and more relevant for a set of vertical sectors. As a consequence, deterministic network solutions are progressively emerging, albeit they are still bounded to specific technological domains. Even considering the existence of interconnected deterministic networks, the provision of an end-to-end (E2E) deterministic service over them must rely on a specific control plane architecture, capable of seamlessly integrate and control the underlying multi-technology data plane. In this work, we envision such a control plane solution, extending previous works and exploiting several innovations and novel architectural concepts. The proposed control architecture is service-centric, in order to provide the necessary flexibility, scalability, and modularity to deal with a heterogenous data plane. The architecture is hierarchical and encompasses a set of management platforms to interact with specific network technologies overarched by an E2E platform for the management, monitoring, and control of E2E deterministic services. Furthermore, Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Digital Twinning are used to enable network predictability and automation, as well as smart resource allocation, to ensure service reliability in dynamic scenarios where existing services may terminate and new ones may need to be deployed

Dynamic Resource Provisioning of a Scalable E2E Network Slicing Orchestration System

Network slicing allows different applications and network services to be deployed on virtualized resources running on a common underlying physical infrastructure. Developing a scalable system for the orchestration of end-to-end (E2E) mobile network slices requires careful planning and very reliable algorithms. In this paper, we propose a novel E2E Network Slicing Orchestration System (NSOS) and a Dynamic Auto- Scaling Algorithm (DASA) for it. Our NSOS relies strongly on the foundation of a hierarchical architecture that incorporates dedicated entities per domain to manage every segment of the mobile network from the access, to the transport and core network part for a scalable orchestration of federated network slices. The DASA enables the NSOS to autonomously adapt its resources to changes in the demand for slice orchestration requests (SORs) while enforcing a given mean overall time taken by the NSOS to process any SOR. The proposed DASA includes both proactive and reactive resource provisioning techniques). The proposed resource dimensioning heuristic algorithm of the DASA is based on a queuing model for the NSOS, which consists of an open network of G/G/m queues. Finally, we validate the proper operation and evaluate the performance of our DASA solution for the NSOS by means of system-level simulations.This research work is partially supported by the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation program under the 5G!Pagoda project, the MATILDA project and the Academy of Finland 6Genesis project with grant agreement No. 723172, No. 761898 and No. 318927, respectively. It was also partially funded by the Academy of Finland Project CSN - under Grant Agreement 311654 and the Spanish Ministry of Education, Culture and Sport (FPU Grant 13/04833), and the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness and the European Regional Development Fund (TEC2016-76795-C6- 4-R)

Network Slicing

Network slicing is emerging as a key enabling technology to support new service needs, business cases, and the evolution of programmable networking. As an end-to-end concept involving network functions in different domains and administrations, network slicing calls for new standardization efforts, design methodologies, and deployment strategies. This chapter aims at addressing the main aspects of network slicing with relevant challenges and practical solutions

5G Infrastructure Network Slicing: E2E Mean Delay Model and Effectiveness Assessment to Reduce Downtimes in Industry 4.0

This work has been partially funded by the H2020 project 5G-CLARITY (Grant No. 871428) and the Spanish national project TRUE-5G (PID2019-108713RB-C53).Fifth Generation (5G) is expected to meet stringent performance network requisites of the Industry 4.0. Moreover, its built-in network slicing capabilities allow for the support of the traffic heterogeneity in Industry 4.0 over the same physical network infrastructure. However, 5G network slicing capabilities might not be enough in terms of degree of isolation for many private 5G networks use cases, such as multi-tenancy in Industry 4.0. In this vein, infrastructure network slicing, which refers to the use of dedicated and well isolated resources for each network slice at every network domain, fits the necessities of those use cases. In this article, we evaluate the effectiveness of infrastructure slicing to provide isolation among production lines (PLs) in an industrial private 5G network. To that end, we develop a queuing theory-based model to estimate the end-to-end (E2E) mean packet delay of the infrastructure slices. Then, we use this model to compare the E2E mean delay for two configurations, i.e., dedicated infrastructure slices with segregated resources for each PL against the use of a single shared infrastructure slice to serve the performance-sensitive traffic from PLs. Also we evaluate the use of Time-Sensitive Networking (TSN) against bare Ethernet to provide layer 2 connectivity among the 5G system components. We use a complete and realistic setup based on experimental and simulation data of the scenario considered. Our results support the effectiveness of infrastructure slicing to provide isolation in performance among the different slices. Then, using dedicated slices with segregated resources for each PL might reduce the number of the production downtimes and associated costs as the malfunctioning of a PL will not affect the network performance perceived by the performance-sensitive traffic from other PLs. Last, our results show that, besides the improvement in performance, TSN technology truly provides full isolation in the transport network compared to standard Ethernet thanks to traffic prioritization, traffic regulation, and bandwidth reservation capabilities.H2020 project 5G-CLARITY 871428Spanish Government PID2019-108713RB-C53TRUE-5

A control and management architecture supporting autonomic NFV services

The proposed control, orchestration and management (COM) architecture is presented from a high-level point of view; it enables the dynamic provisioning of services such as network data connectivity or generic network slicing instances based on virtual network functions (VNF). The COM is based on Software Defined Networking (SDN) principles and is hierarchical, with a dedicated controller per technology domain. Along with the SDN control plane for the provisioning of connectivity, an ETSI NFV management and orchestration system is responsible for the instantiation of Network Services, understood in this context as interconnected VNFs. A key, novel component of the COM architecture is the monitoring and data analytics (MDA) system, able to collect monitoring data from the network, datacenters and applications which outputs can be used to proactively reconfigure resources thus adapting to future conditions, like load or degradations. To illustrate the COM architecture, a use case of a Content Delivery Network service taking advantage of the MDA ability to collect and deliver monitoring data is experimentally demonstrated.Peer ReviewedPostprint (author's final draft

Deliverable JRA1.1: Evaluation of current network control and management planes for multi-domain network infrastructure

This deliverable includes a compilation and evaluation of available control and management architectures and protocols applicable to a multilayer infrastructure in a multi-domain Virtual Network environment.The scope of this deliverable is mainly focused on the virtualisation of the resources within a network and at processing nodes. The virtualization of the FEDERICA infrastructure allows the provisioning of its available resources to users by means of FEDERICA slices. A slice is seen by the user as a real physical network under his/her domain, however it maps to a logical partition (a virtual instance) of the physical FEDERICA resources. A slice is built to exhibit to the highest degree all the principles applicable to a physical network (isolation, reproducibility, manageability, ...). Currently, there are no standard definitions available for network virtualization or its associated architectures. Therefore, this deliverable proposes the Virtual Network layer architecture and evaluates a set of Management- and Control Planes that can be used for the partitioning and virtualization of the FEDERICA network resources. This evaluation has been performed taking into account an initial set of FEDERICA requirements; a possible extension of the selected tools will be evaluated in future deliverables. The studies described in this deliverable define the virtual architecture of the FEDERICA infrastructure. During this activity, the need has been recognised to establish a new set of basic definitions (taxonomy) for the building blocks that compose the so-called slice, i.e. the virtual network instantiation (which is virtual with regard to the abstracted view made of the building blocks of the FEDERICA infrastructure) and its architectural plane representation. These definitions will be established as a common nomenclature for the FEDERICA project. Other important aspects when defining a new architecture are the user requirements. It is crucial that the resulting architecture fits the demands that users may have. Since this deliverable has been produced at the same time as the contact process with users, made by the project activities related to the Use Case definitions, JRA1 has proposed a set of basic Use Cases to be considered as starting point for its internal studies. When researchers want to experiment with their developments, they need not only network resources on their slices, but also a slice of the processing resources. These processing slice resources are understood as virtual machine instances that users can use to make them behave as software routers or end nodes, on which to download the software protocols or applications they have produced and want to assess in a realistic environment. Hence, this deliverable also studies the APIs of several virtual machine management software products in order to identify which best suits FEDERICA’s needs.Postprint (published version

Progressive introduction of network softwarization in operational telecom networks: advances at architectural, service and transport levels

Technological paradigms such as Software Defined Networking, Network Function Virtualization and Network Slicing are altogether offering new ways of providing services. This process is widely known as Network Softwarization, where traditional operational networks adopt capabilities and mechanisms inherit form the computing world, such as programmability, virtualization and multi-tenancy. This adoption brings a number of challenges, both from the technological and operational perspectives. On the other hand, they provide an unprecedented flexibility opening opportunities to developing new services and new ways of exploiting and consuming telecom networks. This Thesis first overviews the implications of the progressive introduction of network softwarization in operational networks for later on detail some advances at different levels, namely architectural, service and transport levels. It is done through specific exemplary use cases and evolution scenarios, with the goal of illustrating both new possibilities and existing gaps for the ongoing transition towards an advanced future mode of operation. This is performed from the perspective of a telecom operator, paying special attention on how to integrate all these paradigms into operational networks for assisting on their evolution targeting new, more sophisticated service demands.Programa de Doctorado en Ingeniería Telemática por la Universidad Carlos III de MadridPresidente: Eduardo Juan Jacob Taquet.- Secretario: Francisco Valera Pintor.- Vocal: Jorge López Vizcaín