19 research outputs found
On the Specialization of FDRL Agents for Scalable and Distributed 6G RAN Slicing Orchestration
Network slicing enables multiple virtual networks to be instantiated and
customized to meet heterogeneous use case requirements over 5G and beyond
network deployments. However, most of the solutions available today face
scalability issues when considering many slices, due to centralized controllers
requiring a holistic view of the resource availability and consumption over
different networking domains. In order to tackle this challenge, we design a
hierarchical architecture to manage network slices resources in a federated
manner. Driven by the rapid evolution of deep reinforcement learning (DRL)
schemes and the Open RAN (O-RAN) paradigm, we propose a set of traffic-aware
local decision agents (DAs) dynamically placed in the radio access network
(RAN). These federated decision entities tailor their resource allocation
policy according to the long-term dynamics of the underlying traffic, defining
specialized clusters that enable faster training and communication overhead
reduction. Indeed, aided by a traffic-aware agent selection algorithm, our
proposed Federated DRL approach provides higher resource efficiency than
benchmark solutions by quickly reacting to end-user mobility patterns and
reducing costly interactions with centralized controllers.Comment: 15 pages, 15 Figures, accepted for publication at IEEE TV
Distributed Ledger Technologies for Network Slicing: A Survey
Network slicing is one of the fundamental tenets of Fifth Generation (5G)/Sixth Generation (6G) networks. Deploying slices requires end-to-end (E2E) control of services and the underlying resources in a network substrate featuring an increasing number of stakeholders. Beyond the technical difficulties this entails, there is a long list of administrative negotiations among parties that do not necessarily trust each other, which often requires costly manual processes, including the legal construction of neutral entities. In this context, Blockchain comes to the rescue by bringing its decentralized yet immutable and auditable lemdger, which has a high potential in the telco arena. In this sense, it may help to automate some of the above costly processes. There have been some proposals in this direction that are applied to various problems among different stakeholders. This paper aims at structuring this field of knowledge by, first, providing introductions to network slicing and blockchain technologies. Then, state-of-the-art is presented through a global architecture that aggregates the various proposals into a coherent whole while showing the motivation behind applying Blockchain and smart contracts to network slicing. And finally, some limitations of current work, future challenges and research directions are also presented.This work was supported in part by the Spanish Formación Personal Investigador (FPI) under Grant PRE2018-086061, in part by the TRUE5G under Grant PID2019-108713RB-C52/AEI/10.13039/501100011033, and in part by the European Union (EU) H2020 The 5G Infrastructure Public Private Partnership (5GPPP) 5Growth Project 856709.Publicad
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