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.

Joberto S. B. Martins, Tereza C. Carvalho, Rodrigo Moreira et al.

Network Slicing (NS) is an essential technique extensively used in 5G networks computing strategies, mobile edge computing, mobile cloud computing, and verticals like the Internet of Vehicles and industrial IoT, among others. NS is foreseen as one of the leading enablers for 6G futuristic and highly demanding applications since it allows the optimization and customization of scarce and disputed resources among dynamic, demanding clients with highly distinct application requirements. Various standardization organizations, like 3GPP's proposal for new generation networks and state-of-the-art 5G/6G research projects, are proposing new NS architectures. However, new NS architectures have to deal with an extensive range of requirements that inherently result in having NS architecture proposals typically fulfilling the needs of specific sets of domains with commonalities. The Slicing Future Internet Infrastructures (SFI2) architecture proposal explores the gap resulting from the diversity of NS architectures target domains by proposing a new NS reference architecture with a defined focus on integrating experimental networks and enhancing the NS architecture with Machine Learning (ML) native optimizations, energy-efficient slicing, and slicing-tailored security functionalities. The SFI2 architectural main contribution includes the utilization of the slice-as-a-service paradigm for end-to-end orchestration of resources across multi-domains and multi-technology experimental networks. In addition, the SFI2 reference architecture instantiations will enhance the multi-domain and multi-technology integrated experimental network deployment with native ML optimization, energy-efficient aware slicing, and slicing-tailored security functionalities for the practical domain.