Design, implementation, and testing of a microservices-based Digital Twins framework for network management and control

The introduction of the Software Defined Networking (SDN) paradigm is radically changing the way in which networks are thought, designed, and managed. The reasons of such huge success are manifold; one of the most relevant is that SDN enables an agile management of the network that can quickly adapt its behavior to the dynamics of the user needs and context conditions. In this sense, SDN represents a fundamental step towards the vision of an autonomous network. Nevertheless, network adaptation still requires the intervention of the network manager that installs and configures the network applications executed by the network operating system. In this context, the application of the Digital Twin (DT) technology can trigger a significant leap forward. In fact, the DT of the network can interact with the other relevant DTs and, applying artificial intelligence techniques, interact with the network operating system and take care of the network application installation and configuration. In this paper we motivate and introduce a platform, implemented exploiting microservices, for the realization of such a vision. The proposed platform is applied in a simple use case to demonstrate the proposed workflow and the resulting impact on network operations.