Efficient radio resource management for the fifth generation slice networks

It is predicted that the IMT-2020 (5G network) will meet increasing user demands and, hence, it is therefore, expected to be as flexible as possible. The relevant standardisation bodies and academia have accepted the critical role of network slicing in the implementation of the 5G network. The network slicing paradigm allows the physical infrastructure and resources of the mobile network to be “sliced” into logical networks, which are operated by different entities, and then engineered to address the specific requirements of different verticals, business models, and individual subscribers. Network slicing offers propitious solutions to the flexibility requirements of the 5G network. The attributes and characteristics of network slicing support the multi-tenancy paradigm, which is predicted to drastically reduce the operational expenditure (OPEX) and capital expenditure (CAPEX) of mobile network operators. Furthermore, network slices enable mobile virtual network operators to compete with one another using the same physical networks but customising their slices and network operation according to their market segment's characteristics and requirements. However, owing to scarce radio resources, the dynamic characteristics of the wireless links, and its capacity, implementing network slicing at the base stations and the access network xix becomes an uphill task. Moreover, an unplanned 5G slice network deployment results in technical challenges such as unfairness in radio resource allocation, poor quality of service provisioning, network profit maximisation challenges, and rises in energy consumption in a bid to meet QoS specifications. Therefore, there is a need to develop efficient radio resource management algorithms that address the above mentioned technical challenges. The core aim of this research is to develop and evaluate efficient radio resource management algorithms and schemes that will be implemented in 5G slice networks to guarantee the QoS of users in terms of throughput and latency while ensuring that 5G slice networks are energy efficient and economically profitable. This thesis mainly addresses key challenges relating to efficient radio resource management. First, a particle swarm-intelligent profit-aware resource allocation scheme for a 5G slice network is proposed to prioritise the profitability of the network while at the same time ensuring that the QoS requirements of slice users are not compromised. It is observed that the proposed new radio swarm-intelligent profit-aware resource allocation (NR-SiRARE) scheme outperforms the LTE-OFDMA swarm-intelligent profit-aware resource (LO-SiRARE) scheme. However, the network profit for the NR-SiRARE is greatly affected by significant degradation of the path loss associated with millimetre waves. Second, this thesis examines the resource allocation challenge in a multi-tenant multi-slice multi-tier heterogeneous network. To maximise the total utility of a multi-tenant multislice multi-tier heterogeneous network, a latency-aware dynamic resource allocation problem is formulated as an optimisation problem. Via the hierarchical decomposition method for heterogeneous networks, the formulated optimisation problem is transformed to reduce the computational complexities of the proposed solutions. Furthermore, a genetic algorithmbased latency-aware resource allocation scheme is proposed to solve the maximum utility problem by considering related constraints. It is observed that GI-LARE scheme outperforms the static slicing (SS) and an optimal resource allocation (ORA) schemes. Moreover, the GI-LARE appears to be near optimal when compared with an exact solution based on spatial branch and bound. Third, this thesis addresses a distributed resource allocation problem in a multi-slice multitier multi-domain network with different players. A three-level hierarchical business model comprising InPs, MVNOs, and service providers (SP) is examined. The radio resource allocation problem is formulated as a maximum utility optimisation problem. A multi-tier multi-domain slice user matching game and a distributed backtracking multi-player multidomain games schemes are proposed to solve the maximum utility optimisation problem. The distributed backtracking scheme is based on the Fisher Market and Auction theory principles. The proposed multi-tier multi-domain scheme outperforms the GI-LARE and the SS schemes. This is attributed to the availability of resources from other InPs and MVNOs; and the flexibility associated with a multi-domain network. Lastly, an energy-efficient resource allocation problem for 5G slice networks in a highly dense heterogeneous environment is investigated. A mathematical formulation of energy-efficient resource allocation in 5G slice networks is developed as a mixed-integer linear fractional optimisation problem (MILFP). The method adopts hierarchical decomposition techniques to reduce complexities. Furthermore, the slice user association, QoS for different slice use cases, an adapted water filling algorithm, and stochastic geometry tools are employed to xxi model the global energy efficiency (GEE) of the 5G slice network. Besides, neither stochastic geometry nor a three-level hierarchical business model schemes have been employed to model the global energy efficiency of the 5G slice network in the literature, making it the first time such method will be applied to 5G slice network. With rigorous numerical simulations based on Monte-Carlo numerical simulation technique, the performance of the proposed algorithms and schemes was evaluated to show their adaptability, efficiency and robustness for a 5G slice network

Multi-tenant slicing for spectrum management on the road to 5G

©2017 IEEE. Personal use of this material is permitted. Permission from IEEE must be obtained for all other uses, in any current or future media, including reprinting/republishing this material for advertising or promotional purposes, creating new collective works, for resale or redistribution to servers or lists, or reuse of any copyrighted component of this work in other works.The explosive data traffic demand in the context of the 5G revolution has stressed the need for network capacity increase. As the network densification has almost reached its limits, mobile network operators are motivated to share their network infrastructure and the available resources through dynamic spectrum management. Although some initial efforts have been made in this direction by concluding sharing agreements at a coarse granularity (i.e., months or years), the 5G developments require fine timescale agreements, mainly enabled by network slicing. In this article, taking into account the radical changes foreseen for next generation networks, we provide a thorough discussion of the challenges that network slicing brings in the different network parts, while introducing a new entity capable of managing the end-to-end slicing in a coherent manner. In addition, according to the paradigm shift of operators sharing their resources in a common centralized pool, we design a cooperative game to study the potential cooperation aspects among the participants. The experimental results highlight the performance and financial gains achievable by operators through multi-tenant slicing, providing them with the necessary incentives for network upgrade toward 5G.Peer ReviewedPostprint (author's final draft

Sl-EDGE: Network Slicing at the Edge

Network slicing of multi-access edge computing (MEC) resources is expected to be a pivotal technology to the success of 5G networks and beyond. The key challenge that sets MEC slicing apart from traditional resource allocation problems is that edge nodes depend on tightly-intertwined and strictly-constrained networking, computation and storage resources. Therefore, instantiating MEC slices without incurring in resource over-provisioning is hardly addressable with existing slicing algorithms. The main innovation of this paper is Sl-EDGE, a unified MEC slicing framework that allows network operators to instantiate heterogeneous slice services (e.g., video streaming, caching, 5G network access) on edge devices. We first describe the architecture and operations of Sl-EDGE, and then show that the problem of optimally instantiating joint network-MEC slices is NP-hard. Thus, we propose near-optimal algorithms that leverage key similarities among edge nodes and resource virtualization to instantiate heterogeneous slices 7.5x faster and within 0.25 of the optimum. We first assess the performance of our algorithms through extensive numerical analysis, and show that Sl-EDGE instantiates slices 6x more efficiently then state-of-the-art MEC slicing algorithms. Furthermore, experimental results on a 24-radio testbed with 9 smartphones demonstrate that Sl-EDGE provides at once highly-efficient slicing of joint LTE connectivity, video streaming over WiFi, and ffmpeg video transcoding

SDN/NFV-enabled satellite communications networks: opportunities, scenarios and challenges

In the context of next generation 5G networks, the satellite industry is clearly committed to revisit and revamp the role of satellite communications. As major drivers in the evolution of (terrestrial) fixed and mobile networks, Software Defined Networking (SDN) and Network Function Virtualisation (NFV) technologies are also being positioned as central technology enablers towards improved and more flexible integration of satellite and terrestrial segments, providing satellite network further service innovation and business agility by advanced network resources management techniques. Through the analysis of scenarios and use cases, this paper provides a description of the benefits that SDN/NFV technologies can bring into satellite communications towards 5G. Three scenarios are presented and analysed to delineate different potential improvement areas pursued through the introduction of SDN/NFV technologies in the satellite ground segment domain. Within each scenario, a number of use cases are developed to gain further insight into specific capabilities and to identify the technical challenges stemming from them.Peer ReviewedPostprint (author's final draft

Network slicing to enable scalability and flexibility in 5G mobile networks

We argue for network slicing as an efficient solution that addresses the diverse requirements of 5G mobile networks, thus provid-ing the necessary flexibility and scalability associated with future network implementations. We elaborate on the challenges that emerge when we design 5G networks based on network slicing. We focus on the architectural aspects associated with the coexistence of dedicated as well as shared slices in the network. In particular, we analyze the realization options of a flexible radio access network with focus on network slicing and their impact on the design of 5G mobile networks. In addition to the technical study, this paper provides an investigation of the revenue potential of network slicing, where the applications that originate from such concept and the profit capabilities from the network operator's perspective are put forward.This work has been performed in the framework of the H2020-ICT-2014-2 project 5G NORMA

Efficient sharing mechanisms for virtualized multi-tenant heterogeneous networks

The explosion in data traffic, the physical resource constraints, and the insufficient financial incentives for deploying 5G networks, stress the need for a paradigm shift in network upgrades. Typically, operators are also the service providers, which charge the end users with low and flat tariffs, independently of the service enjoyed. A fine-scale management of the network resources is needed, both for optimizing costs and resource utilization, as well as for enabling new synergies among network owners and third-parties. In particular, operators could open their networks to third parties by means of fine-scale sharing agreements over customized networks for enhanced service provision, in exchange for an adequate return of investment for upgrading their infrastructures. The main objective of this thesis is to study the potential of fine-scale resource management and sharing mechanisms for enhancing service provision and for contributing to a sustainable road to 5G. More precisely, the state-of-the-art architectures and technologies for network programmability and scalability are studied, together with a novel paradigm for supporting service diversity and fine-scale sharing. We review the limits of conventional networks, we extend existing standardization efforts and define an enhanced architecture for enabling 5G networks' features (e.g., network-wide centralization and programmability). The potential of the proposed architecture is assessed in terms of flexible sharing and enhanced service provision, while the advantages of alternative business models are studied in terms of additional profits to the operators. We first study the data rate improvement achievable by means of spectrum and infrastructure sharing among operators and evaluate the profit increase justified by a better service provided. We present a scheme based on coalitional game theory for assessing the capability of accommodating more service requests when a cooperative approach is adopted, and for studying the conditions for beneficial sharing among coalitions of operators. Results show that: i) collaboration can be beneficial also in case of unbalanced cost redistribution within coalitions; ii) coalitions of equal-sized operators provide better profit opportunities and require lower tariffs. The second kind of sharing interaction that we consider is the one between operators and third-party service providers, in the form of fine-scale provision of customized portions of the network resources. We define a policy-based admission control mechanism, whose performance is compared with reference strategies. The proposed mechanism is based on auction theory and computes the optimal admission policy at a reduced complexity for different traffic loads and allocation frequencies. Because next-generation services include delay-critical services, we compare the admission control performances of conventional approaches with the proposed one, which proves to offer near real-time service provision and reduced complexity. Besides, it guarantees high revenues and low expenditures in exchange for negligible losses in terms of fairness towards service providers. To conclude, we study the case where adaptable timescales are adopted for the policy-based admission control, in order to promptly guarantee service requirements over traffic fluctuations. In order to reduce complexity, we consider the offline pre­computation of admission strategies with respect to reference network conditions, then we study the extension to unexplored conditions by means of computationally efficient methodologies. Performance is compared for different admission strategies by means of a proof of concept on real network traces. Results show that the proposed strategy provides a tradeoff in complexity and performance with respect to reference strategies, while reducing resource utilization and requirements on network awareness.La explosion del trafico de datos, los recursos limitados y la falta de incentivos para el desarrollo de 5G evidencian la necesidad de un cambio de paradigma en la gestion de las redes actuales. Los operadores de red suelen ser tambien proveedores de servicios, cobrando tarifas bajas y planas, independientemente del servicio ofrecido. Se necesita una gestion de recursos precisa para optimizar su utilizacion, y para permitir nuevas sinergias entre operadores y proveedores de servicios. Concretamente, los operadores podrian abrir sus redes a terceros compartiendolas de forma flexible y personalizada para mejorar la calidad de servicio a cambio de aumentar sus ganancias como incentivo para mejorar sus infraestructuras. El objetivo principal de esta tesis es estudiar el potencial de los mecanismos de gestion y comparticion de recursos a pequei\a escala para trazar un camino sostenible hacia el 5G. En concreto, se estudian las arquitecturas y tecnolog fas mas avanzadas de "programabilidad" y escalabilidad de las redes, junto a un nuevo paradigma para la diversificacion de servicios y la comparticion de recursos. Revisamos los limites de las redes convencionales, ampliamos los esfuerzos de estandarizacion existentes y definimos una arquitectura para habilitar la centralizacion y la programabilidad en toda la red. La arquitectura propuesta se evalua en terminos de flexibilidad en la comparticion de recursos, y de mejora en la prestacion de servicios, mientras que las ventajas de un modelo de negocio alternativo se estudian en terminos de ganancia para los operadores. En primer lugar, estudiamos el aumento en la tasa de datos gracias a un uso compartido del espectro y de las infraestructuras, y evaluamos la mejora en las ganancias de los operadores. Presentamos un esquema de admision basado en la teoria de juegos para acomodar mas solicitudes de servicio cuando se adopta un enfoque cooperativo, y para estudiar las condiciones para que la reparticion de recursos sea conveniente entre coaliciones de operadores. Los resultados ensei\an que: i) la colaboracion puede ser favorable tambien en caso de una redistribucion desigual de los costes en cada coalicion; ii) las coaliciones de operadores de igual tamai\o ofrecen mejores ganancias y requieren tarifas mas bajas. El segundo tipo de comparticion que consideramos se da entre operadores de red y proveedores de servicios, en forma de provision de recursos personalizada ya pequei\a escala. Definimos un mecanismo de control de trafico basado en polfticas de admision, cuyo rendimiento se compara con estrategias de referencia. El mecanismo propuesto se basa en la teoria de subastas y calcula la politica de admision optima con una complejidad reducida para diferentes cargas de trafico y tasa de asignacion. Con particular atencion a servicios 5G de baja latencia, comparamos las prestaciones de estrategias convencionales para el control de admision con las del metodo propuesto, que proporciona: i) un suministro de servicios casi en tiempo real; ii) una complejidad reducida; iii) unos ingresos elevados; y iv) unos gastos reducidos, a cambio de unas perdidas insignificantes en terminos de imparcialidad hacia los proveedores de servicios. Para concluir, estudiamos el caso en el que se adoptan escalas de tiempo adaptables para el control de admision, con el fin de garantizar puntualmente los requisitos de servicio bajo diferentes condiciones de trafico. Para reducir la complejidad, consideramos el calculo previo de las estrategias de admision con respecto a condiciones de red de referenda, adaptables a condiciones inexploradas por medio de metodologias computacionalmente eficientes. Se compara el rendimiento de diferentes estrategias de admision sobre trazas de trafico real. Los resultados muestran que la estrategia propuesta equilibra complejidad y ganancias, mientras se reduce la utilizacion de recursos y la necesidad de conocer el estado exacto de la red.Postprint (published version