SDN-enabled Slicing in Disaggregated Multi-domain and Multi-layer 5G Transport Networks

As telecom world progresses towards adopting 5G, to network operators 5G signifies an end-to-end (E2E) flexible, scalable and demand-oriented system to meet the various requirements. E2E network slicing in 5G is considered as a key driving force to achieve this challenging goal. Since transport network forms an integral part of the E2E service paths from 5G Radio Unit (RU) to 5G Core (5GC), transport network needs to support service isolation for 5G slicing and provide means for slice management. As per classical definition, network slicing is the separation of multiple virtual networks that operate on the same physical hardware for different applications, services or purposes e.g. VPN capabilities, provide differentiated QoS levels etc. This work reports one of the first experimental validation of network slicing for disaggregated 5G transport networks with slices defined at multiple layers (L3-L0) and provisioned over multiple networking domains, all using SDN-based network orchestration.