What Is The 5G Network Slicing?

After the read, you will learn what is network slicing and what is 5G network slicing.

What is network slicing?

Network slicing is an on-demand networking method that allows operators to separate multiple virtual end-to-end networks on a unified infrastructure, and each network slice carries out logic from the wireless access network bearer network to the core network Isolation to adapt to various types of applications.

In a network slice, it can be divided into at least three parts: wireless network sub-slice, bearer network sub-slice, and core network sub-slice.

Adapt to the needs of multiple network environments

The core of network slicing technology is NFV (Network Function Virtualization). NFV separates the hardware and software parts from the traditional network. The hardware is deployed by a unified server, and the software is undertaken by different network functions (NF), thus realizing flexible assembly of services demand.

Network slicing is based on a logical concept and is the reorganization of resources. The reorganization is based on SLA (Service Level Agreement) to select the required virtual machines and physical resources for a specific type of communication service.

In the 5G era, mobile network services are no longer simply mobile phones, but various types of devices, such as mobile phones, tablets, fixed sensors, vehicles, and so on.

Application scenarios are also diversified, such as mobile broadband, large-scale Internet, mission-critical Internet, and so on. The requirements that need to be met are also diversified, such as mobility, security, latency, reliability, and so on.

This provides an applicable place for network slicing. Multiple logical networks are split on an independent physical network through network slicing technology, thereby avoiding the construction of a dedicated physical network for each service, which is very cost-effective!

From the perspective of slicing, the traditional EPC can be regarded as a large slice serving all supported mobile devices. However, as mentioned earlier, it is not efficient nor efficient to use a unified network architecture to satisfy all service requests at the same time. It is easy to implement, so the future network must transition from one size fits all to one size per service through network slicing technology.

What is the 5G network slicing?

5G network slicing refers to the implementation of traffic management similar to traffic management for network data. Its essence is to divide the actual physical network into multiple different types of virtual networks at the logical level. According to the service requirements of different users, such as Indexes such as latency, bandwidth, and reliability are divided to cope with complex and changeable application scenarios.

Compared with 4G networks, 5G network slicing can be said to be one of the most distinctive features and advantages of 5G networks.

At present, the mainstream slicing method in the industry is performed in accordance with the three typical application scenarios of 5G (ie, enhanced mobile broadband, massive machine-type communication, and high-reliability and low-latency communication), thereby enabling performance indicators such as network carrying capacity and security meet relevant business needs.

It is worth pointing out that the Network Function Virtualization (NFV) and Software Defined Networks (SDN) that the three major domestic operators have quietly cultivated for many years have also laid a solid foundation for the logical slicing of future 5G networks.

The driving force for the advancement of network slicing generally comes from two aspects: technology and market. In terms of technology, there is still great potential how to improve network operation efficiency and reduce construction costs.

In terms of the market, many fields related to the national economy and people’s livelihood, such as the industrial Internet, driverless cars, and new smart cities, have put forward more urgent needs for higher-quality mobile Internet networks. 5G mobile networks with excellent performance indicators, Will greatly promote the development and progress of related industries.

The architecture and challenges of 5G network slicing

5G Network slicing is an end-to-end complex system engineering, which is quite complicated to implement. It needs to pass through three penetrating networks, access network, core network, data, and service network.

1) The main challenge on the user side of the access network is that some terminal devices (such as cars) need to access multiple slice networks at the same time, and also involves authentication, user identification, and other issues.

2) How to pair access network slices with core 5G network slices? How to choose a core network slice for an access network slice?

3) Orchestration and automation are the keys.

What is the orchestration? Orchestration, or arrangement, was originally meant to be a band conductor. The band conductor is the interpreter of music, the coordinator, manager, planner, and operator of the orchestra. He is the soul of an orchestra. He decides how to express phrases and sounds, how to organize different parts together and turn sound into music.

The arrangement in the 5G network slicing is the band commander. It uses the resources (instruments) in the NFVI (Network Function Virtualization Infrastructure) to form the VNF function (music) and organizes different music into a piece of music pleasant music.

The so-called orchestration and automation include:

Ability to quickly create new services Ability to apply template-driven (Template Driven) slice creation environment Ability to diversify slice parameters to meet the needs of different business use cases Ability to automate slice deployment Ability to elastically scale and restore through services quality monitoring and the ability to dynamically optimize slicing performance.

It is worth mentioning that since network function virtualization is not accomplished overnight, it may take several years. During this period, the physical network functions and virtual network functions within the network will change.

Coexistence, even some physical functions will never be virtualized, this is a hybrid network. Therefore, a network orchestration that includes physical domains and virtual domains is the key to the success of NFV transformation.

In addition, 5G network slicing will introduce third-party developers’ apps, which also pose new challenges to network security.

Application of 5G network slicing

In the future, from virtual reality and augmented reality directly related to people, to autonomous driving, intelligent transportation, and drones, to logistics and warehousing, and industrial automation, as the basic set of informatization, 5G will provide network connections that adapt to the needs of different fields, to promote the improvement and transformation of various industries’ features.

The end-to-end network slicing capability provided by the 5G network can flexibly and dynamically allocate and release the required network resources for different needs in the entire network, and further dynamically optimize network connections, reduce costs, and improve benefits.

Network slicing is not a separate technology. It is implemented based on several technology clusters such as cloud computing, virtualization, software-defined networking, and distributed cloud architecture. Through the unified orchestration of the upper layer, the network has the ability to manage and collaborate.

So as to realize the function based on a common physical network infrastructure platform that can support multiple logical networks at the same time.

Compared with 2/3/4G networks, the separation of CP/UP in 5G networks makes network deployment more intensive and flexible.

The reconstruction of the control plane allows session management and mobile management functions to be deployed independently on-demand, instead of just being satisfied with the communication-oriented to the mobile state of humans and vehicles can also meet the machine-type conversations of stationary services such as water and electricity meter reading; mobile edge computing promotes network capabilities to distributed cloud data centers close to users.

Let the connection have price flexibility

In the 5G era, operators need to have the ability to quickly launch services and deploy flexibly. The 5G network not only needs to meet the needs of a large number of parallel services to go online to ensure end-to-end performance but also to avoid the investment risks of emerging services in the market cultivation stage.

If a private network is built according to traditional ideas, it will inevitably cause a waste of resources, but it can be achieved through network slicing. According to the requirements of the logical private network, once a private network service has no investment value, operators can withdraw in time and dynamically delete slices, effectively reducing the risk and cost of customer investment.

Therefore, the performance and cost considerations of network slicing also need to be dynamic.

For example, there are two businesses: smoke monitoring and alarm system and water meter reading. If network resources are evenly distributed according to the mass market mobile Internet services, it will be a loss for smoke monitoring to be used for smoke detection.

However, once the smoke detection system alarms, the resource scheduling priority covered by the alarm must be the highest; and the water meter reading may not Requires real-time online special demand optimization, which means that only low-cost resources need to be allocated to satisfy the monthly meter reading behavior.

Through the above two application scenarios, requires the network to have different adaptive capabilities to allocate resources, so as to realize the price flexibility space that determines the industry connection.

This actually includes, for example, China Telecom hopes to build an intelligent network, and China Mobile proposes a big connection for the future. The thrust of the strategy lies.

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