Will SDN be part of 5G?

For many, this is no longer a valid question and the case is considered settled with SDN/NFV (Software Defined Networking/Network Function Virtualization) providing the inevitable innovation enablers solving many outstanding management issues regarding 5G. However, given the monumental task of softwarization of radio access network (RAN) while 5G is just around the corner and some companies have started unveiling their 5G equipment already, the concern is very realistic that we may only see some point solutions involving SDN technology instead of a fully SDN-enabled RAN. This survey paper identifies all important obstacles in the way and looks at the state of the art of the relevant solutions. This survey is different from the previous surveys on SDN-based RAN as it focuses on the salient problems and discusses solutions proposed within and outside SDN literature. Our main focus is on fronthaul, backward compatibility, supposedly disruptive nature of SDN deployment, business cases and monetization of SDN related upgrades, latency of general purpose processors (GPP), and additional security vulnerabilities, softwarization brings along to the RAN. We have also provided a summary of the architectural developments in SDN-based RAN landscape as not all work can be covered under the focused issues. This paper provides a comprehensive survey on the state of the art of SDN-based RAN and clearly points out the gaps in the technology.Comment: 33 pages, 10 figure

Evolution towards Smart Optical Networking: Where Artificial Intelligence (AI) meets the World of Photonics

Smart optical networks are the next evolution of programmable networking and programmable automation of optical networks, with human-in-the-loop network control and management. The paper discusses this evolution and the role of Artificial Intelligence (AI)

Experimental SDN Control Solutions for Automatic Operations and Management of 5G Services in a Fixed Mobile Converged Packet-Optical Network

5G networks will impose network operators to accommodate services demanding heterogeneous and stringent requirements in terms of increased bandwidth, reduced latency, higher availability, etc. as well as enabling emerging capabilities such as slicing. Operators will be then forced to make notable investments in their infrastructure but the revenue is not envisaged to be proportional. Thereby, operators are seeking for more cost-effective solutions to keep their competitiveness. An appealing solution is to integrate all (broadband) services including both fixed and mobile in a convergent way. This is referred to as Fixed Mobile Convergence (FMC). FMC allows seamlessly serving any kind of access service over the same network infrastructure (access, aggregation and core) and relying on common set of control and operation functions. To this end, FMC leverages the benefits provided by Software Defined Networking (SDN) and Network Function Virtualization (NFV). First, we discuss some of the explored FMC solutions and technologies, from both structural and functional perspectives Next, focusing on a Multi-Layer (Packet and Optical) Aggregation Network, we report two implemented and experimentally validated SDN/NFV orchestration architectures providing feasibleThis work has been partially funded by the Spanish Ministry MINECO projects DESTELLO (TEC2015-69256-R) and 5G-REFINE (TEC2017-88373-R), and the EU H2020 5G TRANSFORMER project (grant no. 761536)