3GPP and Network Slicing in 5G
3GPP as the foremost standards body driving network slicing defines the overall framework for Operators to provide customized network slice instances (NSI) that support various requirements/features. These include a Network Slicing management framework which this blog post will discuss.
As discussed in other posts, Network slicing allows the operator to provide customized networks based on functionality, performance, and industry requirements. Customers use these NSIs to support new business models.
Network Slicing Management Framework
The 3GPP 5G network slicing management framework is built upon the following principles:
- Provide a standardized management service interface for various network slicing management services.
- Provide a standardized management service interface for network function management services.
- Supports multi-vendor interactions, which leverage the standardized management service interfaces of the network slicing management services, as well as the standardized management service interfaces of the network function related management functions.
- Provides a simple set of management functions from slice management to manage network functions.
- Provide support for various Network Operator deployment options. Then a set of generic management services applicable to various kinds of network functions.
Network Slicing Lifecycle
The NSI lifecycle consists of the following stages at a high level:
- NSI Provisioning, Deletion & Modification: In this phase, the operator creates/modifies/deletes Network Slices. The operator can also provide various network functions to be used in Network Slices & then to define various network services and any business capabilities supported by a network slice.
- NSI User management and association to devices: The operator configures the association of devices and services to Network Slices. They also perform both user mobility and add/removal between/from slices.
- Interoperability: The operator supports the ability for a home slice to operate in a roaming/non-roaming mode and for multiple devices to be connected to multiple slices at the same time
- Performance and isolation: support dynamic slice scaleup/scale down based on usage and performance isolation from a multitenancy standpoint.
Image Credit 3GPP – Network Slicing lifecycle
The above phases have been broken down by 3GPP into the following granular stages –
- Preparation (overall slice design, capacity planning and onboarding etc)
- Commissioning (all needed resources are allocated and configured)
- Operation (activation of NSI, performance monitoring & reporting, deactivation)
- Decommissioning (slice termination and freeing up of any allocated resources)
Conclusion
The next blogpost will discuss the 3GPP proposed generic reference architecture for Network Slicing.
Image credit: https://unsplash.com/photos/OKOOGO578eo