Uncertainty-Aware Resource Provisioning for Network Slicing Luu, Quang-Trung; Kerboeuf, Sylvaine; Kieffer, Michel
IEEE eTransactions on network and service management,
2021-March, 2021-3-00, 20210301, 2021-03-01, Letnik:
18, Številka:
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Journal Article
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Network slicing allows Mobile Network Operators to split the physical infrastructure into isolated virtual networks (slices), managed by Service Providers to accommodate customized services. The ...Service Function Chains (SFCs) belonging to a slice are usually deployed on a best-effort premise: nothing guarantees that network infrastructure resources will be sufficient to support a varying number of users, each with uncertain requirements. Taking the perspective of a network Infrastructure Provider (InP), this article proposes a resource provisioning approach for slices, robust to a partly unknown number of users with random usage of the slice resources. The provisioning scheme aims to maximize the total earnings of the InP, while providing a probabilistic guarantee that the amount of provisioned network resources will meet the slice requirements. Moreover, the proposed provisioning approach is performed so as to limit its impact on low-priority background services, which may co-exist with slices in the infrastructure network. Taking all these constraints into account leads to an integer programming problem with many nonlinear constraints. These constraints are first relaxed to get an integer linear programming formulation of the slice resource provisioning problem. This problem is then solved considering the slice resource provisioning demands jointly. A suboptimal approach is finally proposed where slice resource provisioning demands are considered sequentially. Both solutions are compared to provisioning schemes that do not account for best-effort services sharing the common infrastructure network, as well as uncertainties in the slice resource demands.
With network slicing in 5G networks, Mobile Network Operators can create various slices for Service Providers (SPs) to accommodate customized services. Usually, the various Service Function Chains ...(SFCs) belonging to a slice are deployed on a best-effort basis. Nothing ensures that the Infrastructure Provider (InP) will be able to allocate enough resources to cope with the increasing demands of some SP. Moreover, in many situations, slices have to be deployed over some geographical area: coverage as well as minimum per-user rate constraints have then to be taken into account. This paper takes the InP perspective and proposes a slice resource provisioning approach to cope with multiple slice demands in terms of computing, storage, coverage, and rate constraints. The resource requirements of the various SFCs within a slice are aggregated within a graph of Slice Resource Demands (SRD). Infrastructure nodes and links have then to be provisioned so as to satisfy all SRDs. This problem leads to a Mixed Integer Linear Programming formulation. A two-step approach is considered, with several variants, depending on whether the constraints of each slice to be provisioned are taken into account sequentially or jointly. Once provisioning has been performed, any slice deployment strategy may be considered on the reduced-size infrastructure graph on which resources have been provisioned. Simulation results demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed approach compared to a more classical direct slice embedding approach.
Network slicing has emerged as a key concept in 5G systems, allowing Mobile Network Operators (MNOs) to build isolated logical networks (slices) on top of shared infrastructure networks managed by ...Infrastructure Providers (InP). Network slicing requires the assignment of infrastructure network resources to virtual network components at slice activation time and the adjustment of resources for slices under operation. Performing these operations just-in-time, on a best-effort basis, comes with no guarantee on the availability of enough infrastructure resources to meet slice requirements. This paper proposes a prioritized admission control mechanism for concurrent slices based on an infrastructure resource reservation approach. The reservation accounts for the dynamic nature of slice requests while being robust to uncertainties in slice resource demands. Adopting the perspective of an InP, reservation schemes are proposed that maximize the number of slices for which infrastructure resources can be granted while minimizing the costs charged to the MNOs. This requires the solution of a max-min optimization problem with a non-linear cost function and non-linear constraints induced by the robustness to uncertainties of demands and the limitation of the impact of reservation on background services. The cost and the constraints are linearized and several reduced-complexity strategies are proposed to solve the slice admission control and resource reservation problem. Simulations show that the proportion of admitted slices of different priority levels can be adjusted by a differentiated selection of the delay between the reception and the processing instants of a slice resource request.
HTTP adaptive streaming (HAS) has emerged as the main technology for video streaming applications. Multiple HAS video clients sharing the same wireless channel may experience different video ...qualities as well as different play-out buffer levels, as a result of both different video content complexities and different channel conditions. This causes unfairness in the end-user quality of experience. In this paper, we propose a quality-fair adaptive streaming solution with fair buffer (QFAS-FB) to deliver fair video quality and to achieve asymptotically fair play-out buffer levels among HAS clients competing for the same wireless resources in a long-term evolution (LTE) cell. In the QFAS-FB framework, the share of radio resources is optimized according to video content characteristics, play-out buffer levels, and channel conditions. The proposed solution is compared with the other state-of-the-art strategies, and the numerical results show that it significantly improves the quality fairness among heterogeneous HAS users, reduces the video quality variations, and improves the fairness among the user's play-out buffers.
Future 5G mobile networks are expected to support network slicing, i.e. multiple virtual networks running on a common infrastructure. A virtual network, called network slice, may be created to ...support a specific communication service type, such as massive machine-type communication, or even a specific application, for example one single Internet of Things (IoT) application. Network slices may be created by an organization like a Mobile Network Operator (MNO) and rented out to 3 rd -party organizations like enterprises. A prerequisite for running a highly sensitive service in a network slice is full isolation of the slice against all other users of the common network infrastructure. An industry vertical renting a slice for an Industry 4.0 application may even require isolation against the organizations providing the network infrastructure. In this paper, we introduce different novel provisioning models for 3 rd -party slices and discuss their isolation properties. We conclude that network slices relying solely on common infrastructure cannot meet highest isolation requirements. We therefore introduce new network architecture deployment models which include 3 rd -party-owned network infrastructure, and show how they can be used by 3 rd -parties to implement highly secure mobile communication services.
With network slicing, Mobile Network Operators can accommodate on a common network infrastructure various customized services from Service Providers (SPs). Usually, the Service Function Chains ...belonging to a slice are deployed on a best-effort basis. Nothing ensures that enough infrastructure resources can be allocated to satisfy the demands of SPs. This paper introduces a radio resources provisioning approach to satisfy the demands of slices with radio coverage constraints. By provisioning, we ensure that enough resources are reserved for further SFC deployment. Numerical results show the effectiveness of the proposed provisioning framework for a slice deployment on a mobile network infrastructure satisfying a minimum data rate for users in the geographical areas where services have to be made available.
In a converged world, wireless users expect always-on connectivity in order to run several long-duration applications in parallel (e.g., streaming, messaging, peer-to-peer (P2P), or content ...publishing). This collides with the intrinsic limitations of wireless technologies: scarce and shared radio resources and the limited battery life of terminals. This letter introduces a new generation of service-aware network elements-network-hosted avatars-designed to help operators satisfy the expectations of their wireless customers. A network-hosted avatar is charged with representing a user's applications, data, and presence in a stable and permanent way. It hosts and executes user applications, independently of the terminal state. For example, a several hour file download may be completed while the terminal is switched off. In addition, it deals with radio conditions, ensuring optimal uplink/downlink transfer of content and information to the end user. The novelty of the approach resides in the selection and integration of state-of-the-art mechanisms best suited to help the operators. The resulting benefits are sessions without time constraints, reduced terminal power consumption, optimized usage of access network resources, ubiquitous access to personal data (anytime, anywhere), and permanent availability (i.e., intelligent presence and paging management). Preliminary performance evaluation indicates an ability to double the number of supported users and applications. Our next research steps will focus on a complete performance evaluation, on the means to add applications (plug-and-play) easily, and on the benefits of synergies among several collocated network-hosted avatars (farms).
This paper investigates the scaling of business ordering, delivery and fulfillment of 5G/6G services especially applied to network slicing. We propose a system including architecture and methods to ...translate customer expectations expressed as intents into management services enabling network elements configuration. Our architecture uses a clear separation between engagement channels and the actual management of services and is compatible with the TM Forum Open Digital Architecture (ODA). Some components of the solution were successfully demonstrated such as a business intent resolver that interfaces with two engagement channels offering customers the choice of the user experience and to benefit from a Natural Language Processing based (NLP) interaction with a chatbot.
Network slicing has emerged as a key concept in 5G systems, allowing Mobile Network Operators (MNOs) to build isolated logical networks (slices) on top of shared infrastructure networks managed by ...Infrastructure Providers (InP). Network slicing requires the assignment of infrastructure network resources to virtual network components at slice activation time and the adjustment of resources for slices under operation. Performing these operations just-in-time, on a best-effort basis, comes with no guarantee on the availability of enough infrastructure resources to meet slice requirements. This paper proposes a prioritized admission control mechanism for concurrent slices based on an infrastructure resource reservation approach. The reservation accounts for the dynamic nature of slice requests while being robust to uncertainties in slice resource demands. Adopting the perspective of an InP, reservation schemes are proposed that maximize the number of slices for which infrastructure resources can be granted while minimizing the costs charged to the MNOs. This requires the solution of a max-min optimization problem with a non-linear cost function and non-linear constraints induced by the robustness to uncertainties of demands and the limitation of the impact of reservation on background services. The cost and the constraints are linearized and several reduced-complexity strategies are proposed to solve the slice admission control and resource reservation problem. Simulations show that the proportion of admitted slices of different priority levels can be adjusted by a differentiated selection of the delay between the reception and the processing instants of a slice resource request.
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