ECI's Elastic Network
  • Career
  • Follow
    • Blog
  • Login
ECI ELASTIC Network solutions logo
  • Career
  • Follow
    • Blog
  • Login
ECI-BLOG-1.jpg
ECI-BLOG-Page.jpg

5G Slicing: Concepts, Architectures, and Challenges

Posted by Amit Cohen on 22 Nov 2018
Amit Cohen
  • Tweet

Part 2: Network Slicing Concepts and Requirements

In the previous blog in this series, I talked about the basic tenants of network slicing. We discussed what network slicing was, and started by defining some requirements. Mainly I discussed the role of resources and virtualization. In this blog, I will discuss a few more basic requirements for network slicing. Specifically, orchestration, isolation and autonomous behaviors.

Orchestration 

In its general sense, orchestration can be defined as the art of both bringing together and coordinate disparate things into a coherent whole.

In a slicing environment, where the resources involved are so diverse, an orchestrator is needed to coordinate seemingly disparate network processes for creating, managing and delivering services.

Learn more about slicing technologies,  download an ACG white paper

The industry has yet to define a unified vision and scope for orchestration, or orchestrators. However, in general, orchestration is defined as the continuing process of selecting resources to fulfill client service demands in an optimal manner. The idea of optimal refers to the optimization policy that governs ‘orchestrator’ behavior. In other words, to meet all the specific policies and SLAs of the specific services and with the fewest possible resources. The term continuing means that available resources, service demands and optimization criteria may change overtime.

However with network slicing orchestration cannot be performed by a single centralized entity, not only because of the complexity and broad scope or orchestration tasks, but also because it is necessary to preserve management independence and support the possibility of recursion.

In my point of view, the network needs a framework where each virtualized function has an entity performing the orchestration. The orchestrating entities should exchange information (at the API layer) and delegate/change/add functionalities between them to ensure that the services delivered satisfies the required performance levels with optimal resource and its LCM.

Isolation 

To operate simultaneous slices on a common shared underlying infrastructure, strong isolation is a must. One must look at isolation in terms of:

  • Performance: each slice is defined to meet particular service requirements, usually expressed in the form of KPIs. Performance isolation is an E2E issue and has to ensure that service-specific performance requirements are always met by each slice, regardless of congestion or performance of other slices.
  • Security and privacy: attacks, failures or faults occurring on one slice cannot impact on other slices. Moreover, each slice must have independent security functions and definitions to prevent unauthorized entities from access to slice-specific configuration/management/accounting information. With the ability to record these attempts, whether authorized or not. 
  • Management: each slice must be independently managed as a separate network that starts from the base station all the way to the core.

To achieve isolation, a set of appropriate, consistent policies and mechanisms have to be defined at each virtualization level. The policies need to include a list of rules that describe how different manageable entities must be properly isolated. The mechanisms (how it is to be done) are the processes that are implemented to enforce the defined policies. To fully realize isolation level, one must employ both virtualization and orchestration.

Autonomous Behaviors

Once a slice is set up, no matter if it’s used, that specific slice that was set up should function autonomously with no human intervention. The reason that autonomous functionality is required is due to the fact the network cannot be expected to know or understand what going on in next slice, or how the demand will change over time.

Autonomous behavior will require several components:

  • Scheduling Algorithm - to schedule and analyze resources required to support all changes. The algorithm needs to send the information collected to the orchestrator.
  • Resource Management – which is needed to receive an accurate, real-time status of resource utilization, schedule resources for upcoming tasks and alert when utilization has been maxed out. The orchestrator will then decide upon next steps.
  • Machine Learning – As opposed to 4G/LTE, 5G networks should be able to handle extreme situations in an ambiguous, changing environment. Reducing the number of changes in the LCM without using KPIs or thresholds, is a major challenge. ML should not only help to provide "forecast" of demand, but also help prepare the network by increasing/decreasing network resources within the domains or zones. 

Netflix is a great example of such autonomous service. Stay tuned for part 3 in the series where I discuss the architectures required for network slicing.

Learn more about slicing technologies,  download an ACG white paper

Topics: SDN, NFV, 5G, Network Slicing, Orchestration, Logical Network

Subscribe to ECI Email Updates

aboutheauthor-new
Amit Cohen
Amit Cohen

Senior Director, Cloud Platforms Chief Principal Architect, NFV/5G/IOT at ECI. Amit has a track record of technical & business roles in management & leadership, product management & innovation, sales management and business development in IT and Telecommunication industry within international software vendors: Novell, Microsoft, Alcatel-Lucent & Huawei. Amit is responsible for end to end NFV & SDN system design & architecture at ECI R&D.

ECI For Network Solutions
brows-categories-new

  • SDN (57)
  • Service Providers (57)
  • Optical Networking (39)
  • 5G (38)
  • NFV (34)
  • Critical Infrastructures (32)
  • Cyber Security (28)
  • Utility (27)
  • Network Modernization (23)
  • Packet Networking (18)
  • IP (16)
  • Mobile Backhaul (15)
  • Cloud Networking (13)
  • Enhancing Network Efficiency (13)
  • Other (12)
  • Carrier Ethernet (11)
  • Network Slicing (11)
  • Telco Transformation (11)
  • Africa (9)
  • IoT (9)
  • Legacy Networks (8)
  • SD-WAN (8)
  • telecom (8)
  • Open Source (7)
  • Segment Routing (7)
  • Software (7)
  • containers (7)
  • Multi-Layer Optimization (6)
  • Packet (6)
  • Smart Grid (6)
  • Aligning Network Architectures (5)
  • Disaggregation (5)
  • FlexE (5)
  • Intelligent Networking (5)
  • Metro (5)
  • Network Management (5)
  • Network Transformation (5)
  • Open (5)
  • Optical Networks (5)
  • Sustainability (5)
  • general (5)
  • Access (4)
  • Hardware (4)
  • MEC (4)
  • Network Operations (4)
  • OTT (4)
  • Orchestration (4)
  • Smart City (4)
  • Telecoms (4)
  • UTelco (4)
  • Utilities (4)
  • VMs (4)
  • Artificial Intelligence (3)
  • Cloud Design (3)
  • DER (3)
  • Digital Transformation (3)
  • Environment (3)
  • Ethernet (3)
  • FTTH (3)
  • FlexibleEthernet (3)
  • Logical Network (3)
  • MPLS (3)
  • Multi-Tenant (3)
  • Network Automation (3)
  • PaaS (3)
  • Software Defined Networks (3)
  • Virtualization (3)
  • WAN (3)
  • eMBB (3)
  • 5G business case (2)
  • APIs (2)
  • Big-Data (2)
  • Broadcast (2)
  • Business Services (2)
  • DWDM (2)
  • Data Center Interconnect (2)
  • DevOps (2)
  • Distributed Energy Resources (2)
  • Encryption (2)
  • IP/MPLS (2)
  • India (2)
  • Interoperability (2)
  • Latency (2)
  • MEF (2)
  • Machine Learning (2)
  • Mobile (2)
  • Multi-Access Edge Computing (2)
  • NFVi (2)
  • Network Design (2)
  • OTN (2)
  • Open Optical Systems (2)
  • OpenFlow (2)
  • Optical Encryption (2)
  • PCE (2)
  • Telecommunications (2)
  • VIM (2)
  • hyperscale (2)
  • microservices (2)
  • uCPE (2)
  • 5G Network Evolution (1)
  • 5G ROI (1)
  • 5G spectrum (1)
  • API economy (1)
  • AR/VR (1)
  • ATM (1)
  • Airports (1)
  • Autonomous Vehicles (1)
  • Bandwidth (1)
  • Bandwidth on Demand (1)
  • Bitcoin (1)
  • Blockchain (1)
  • Branch Office (1)
  • Business Care (1)
  • CLNS (1)
  • CMTC (1)
  • Capacity (1)
  • Carriers (1)
  • Cloud Service Providers (1)
  • Coherent Transport (1)
  • Complete Network Environment (1)
  • Connected Cars (1)
  • Core (1)
  • Core Transport (1)
  • Dedicated ASIC (1)
  • Dockers (1)
  • Drones (1)
  • ESP (1)
  • EV (1)
  • Electric Vehicles (1)
  • FDDI (1)
  • Firewalls (1)
  • Future Proof (1)
  • God Box (1)
  • ICT (1)
  • IEEE (1)
  • IP Technologies (1)
  • IPoverDWDM (1)
  • IPv6 (1)
  • IaaS (1)
  • Industry 4.0 (1)
  • Intent-based Networking (1)
  • LAN (1)
  • Layer 1 Encryption (1)
  • Legacy Technology Migration (1)
  • Lifecycle Management (1)
  • Local Area Network (1)
  • Low Latency (1)
  • MMTC (1)
  • MPLS-TP (1)
  • Massive Machine Type Communications (1)
  • Metro Aggregation (1)
  • Mobile Edge Computing (1)
  • Municipalities (1)
  • NOS (1)
  • Network Migration (1)
  • Network Operating Systems (1)
  • Network Planning (1)
  • Network Security (1)
  • Network Upgrade (1)
  • Non-coherent (1)
  • Novell Netware (1)
  • OLS (1)
  • OSI Stack (1)
  • Open Architectures (1)
  • Open Optics (1)
  • Packet Migration (1)
  • Packet-Optical (1)
  • Power (1)
  • Pricing (1)
  • RESTful (1)
  • Railway (1)
  • Research and Education (1)
  • Routing (1)
  • SCADA Anomaly Detection (1)
  • SONET (1)
  • Security (1)
  • Self-Organizing Networks (1)
  • Shannon Limit (1)
  • Smart Transportation (1)
  • Stateful (1)
  • Stateless (1)
  • Token Ring (1)
  • Transformation (1)
  • Transportation (1)
  • Transportation Systems (1)
  • URLL (1)
  • URLLC (1)
  • VNFs (1)
  • VPN (1)
  • Vendor Agnostic (1)
  • Whitebox (1)
  • e-learning (1)
  • eVPN (1)
  • enterprise (1)
  • hyperconvergence (1)
  • lightPULSE (1)
  • vCPE (1)
see all
archive-new

  • January 2019 (7)
  • December 2018 (3)
  • November 2018 (8)
  • October 2018 (8)
  • September 2018 (6)
  • August 2018 (4)
  • July 2018 (8)
  • June 2018 (7)
  • May 2018 (8)
  • April 2018 (8)
  • March 2018 (8)
  • February 2018 (7)
  • January 2018 (6)
  • December 2017 (4)
  • November 2017 (7)
  • October 2017 (8)
  • September 2017 (7)
  • August 2017 (4)
  • July 2017 (8)
  • June 2017 (8)
  • May 2017 (8)
  • April 2017 (6)
  • March 2017 (7)
  • February 2017 (7)
  • January 2017 (5)
  • December 2016 (3)
  • November 2016 (7)
  • October 2016 (5)
  • September 2016 (6)
  • August 2016 (6)
  • July 2016 (6)
  • June 2016 (6)
  • May 2016 (7)
  • April 2016 (9)
  • March 2016 (8)
  • February 2016 (7)
  • January 2016 (5)
  • November 2015 (6)
  • October 2015 (1)
  • April 2015 (1)
  • March 2015 (1)
  • January 2015 (1)
  • December 2014 (1)
  • October 2014 (1)
  • August 2014 (1)
  • July 2014 (1)
  • January 2014 (1)
  • December 2013 (2)
  • December 2012 (1)
  • July 2012 (1)
  • June 2012 (1)
  • May 2012 (2)
  • March 2012 (2)
  • February 2012 (3)
  • January 2012 (2)
  • December 2011 (2)
  • November 2011 (5)
  • October 2011 (4)
  • September 2011 (5)
  • April 2011 (5)
  • February 2011 (2)
  • January 2011 (4)
  • December 2010 (5)
  • November 2010 (6)
  • October 2010 (4)
  • September 2010 (4)
  • August 2010 (6)
  • July 2010 (8)
See All

Recent Posts

Industries

  • Service Providers
  • Utilities and Strategic Industries
  • Data Center
  • Research and Education Network

Products

  • Elastic Services Platform
  • Transport Product Lines
  • Management
  • Muse™ - Network and Service Applications
  • Muse™ - Cyber Security Suite
  • Mercury™ - NFV Solutions

Services

  • Professional Services
  • Services Login

Partners

  • Partner Program
  • Partner Login

RESOURCES

  • What's Hot
  • What's New
  • In the News
  • Blogs
  • Events
  • Webinars
  • Innovation

About

  • Exec Team
  • Global Offices
  • Association
  • Corporate Responsibility
  • Contact
  • We're Hiring!
  • Privacy
  • Terms
© All rights reserved ECI Telecom 2018