Cristiano Bonato Both

Felipe Hauschild Grings, Gustavo Zanatta Bruno, Lucio Rene Prade et al.

With 5G's rapid global uptake, demand for agile private networks has exploded. A defining beyond-5G capability is network slicing. 3GPP specifies three core slice categories, massive Machine-Type Communications (mMTC), enhanced Mobile Broadband (eMBB), and Ultra-Reliable Low-Latency Communications (URLLC), while ETSI's Zero-Touch Network and Service Management (ZSM) targets human-less operation. Yet existing documents do not spell out end-to-end (E2E) management spanning multiple domains and subnet instances. We introduce the Network Slice-as-a-Service Platform (NASP), designed to work across 3GPP and non-3GPP networks. NASP (i) translates business-level slice requests into concrete physical instances and inter-domain interfaces, (ii) employs a hierarchical orchestrator that aligns distributed management functions, and (iii) exposes clean south-bound APIs toward domain controllers. A prototype was built by unifying guidance from 3GPP, ETSI, and O-RAN, identifying overlaps and gaps among them. We tested NASP with two exemplary deployments, 3GPP and non-3GPP, over four scenarios: mMTC, URLLC, 3GPP-Shared, and non-3GPP. The Communication Service Management Function handled all requests, underlining the platform's versatility. Measurements show that core-network configuration dominates slice-creation time (68 %), and session setup in the URLLC slice is 93 % faster than in the Shared slice. Cost analysis for orchestrating five versus ten concurrent slices reveals a 112 % delta between edge and centralized deployments. These results demonstrate that NASP delivers flexible, standards-aligned E2E slicing while uncovering opportunities to reduce latency and operational cost.

Felipe Arnholda, Flavio Rocha, Lucio Prade et al.

Network Slice as a Service (NSaaS) is a key enabler of Beyond Fifth Generation (5G) and Sixth Generation (6G) networks, supporting next-generation applications such as extended reality (XR), immersive services, and the tactile Internet. These networks must provide native support for slice-aware services across the entire Radio Access Network (RAN), including the Radio Unit (RU), Distributed Unit (DU), Central Unit (CU), and transport segments (fronthaul, midhaul, and backhaul). However, uplink slicing identification in shared Open-RUs (O-RUs) presents a fundamental challenge because the Open-DU (O-DU) handles scheduling, and the O-RU does not inherently know which uplink data belongs to which slice. In MultiPoint-to-MultiPoint (MP2MP) fronthaul scenarios, this limitation is further exacerbated by synchronization and timing constraints, which necessitate that the O-RU process control messages and the encapsulated data be delivered with ultra-low latency. To address this issue, we propose a slicing agent embedded in the O-RU that identifies slices and segregates uplink data into slice-specific enhanced Common Public Radio Interface (eCPRI) packets. Our design employs a pipeline architecture with dedicated paths for time-sensitive, flexible slicing, enabling slice isolation and prioritization. When implemented on an Field-Programmable Gate Array (FPGA), the agent processes each packet in 2 clock cycles, supporting up to 3822 slices per slot. Experimental results validate the approach, showing its feasibility, scalability, and high-performance capabilities for real-time, slice-aware uplink processing in Beyond 5G and 6G Open RAN deployments.