Automatic Data Plane provisioning in a Sliced Mobile Network Scenario

Abstract

One of the main concerns that motivate the innovation in the development of new technologies for 5G networks is the automation of Network Services catered to the Users. The focus on research and manufacture of specialized hardware is shifted to the use of virtualization technologies such as Network Function Virtualization (NFV) and Software Defined Networking (SDN) which drastically reduces time to market deployment. The benefits of these technologies bring more flexibility on how and when to deploy network services in order to adapt to the market needs. This flexibility allows network operators to increase or decrease network performance on the basis of the user's consumption and also provide specific resources that cater to the need of a specific Tenant. This thesis proposal centers its idea in the automatic provision of Data Plane network functions based on Video Streaming Network Usage. It achieves this by adding a Network Monitoring Agent (NMA) in order to collect Data Plane related information from the network and use it to extend the multiple slice selection functionality provided by a Network Slice Selection Function (NSSF). The automatic data plane provisioning is handled from a Top to Bottom approach, by taking advantage of a previously developed Intent Based Networking Tool alongside the open-source Mobile Central Office Rearchitected as a Data-Center (M-CORD) Platform by introducing a Data Plane Provisioning Module (DPPM) that receives the monitoring information from the NMA and defines the directives for creation of new Data Plane network functions. The results of this proposal aim to achieve a further step into network automation by taking advantage of the capabilities of a Network Controller and consolidating emerging solutions related to Network Slicing and QoS policy definition based on Network Contracts.