Network Slicing

Building Next Generation Networks

GCF 5G Workshop for MENA

November 2018
 The Future Network: “One slice doesn’t fit all”
Mobile
Communication
Smart Pollution
Meter Monitoring
Environment
Monitoring
Smart
Smart grid Sensor Smart
Meter Smart
Grid

Real-time
Surveillance
System Industrial
Automation

Smart City
Real-time Management
Car
parking Surveillance
system System
Public Facilities
monitoring

Everyone Everything Different QoS, SLA,

Connected Connected Security, Scale,…

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 3GPP defines Network Slicing in a general way
A logical network that provides specific network capabilities and network
characteristics.
Service Instance
layer Service 1 Service 2 Service 3 Service 4 Service 5 l One slice provides
one or more
services
Network Slice
Slice 1 Slice 2 Slice 3 Slice 4
Instance layer l One slice is
composed by one
sub-slice1
sub-slice2 sub-slice4 or multiple sub-
slices which can be
sub-slice3 sub-slice5 sub-slice6 CN, RAN or BN

Resource l Two slices can

Layer share one or
multiple sub-slices

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 Multiple SDOs collaborate to standardize Network Slicing

General architecture and E2E bearer network Overall slicing standards, Mgmt. and orchestration
original requirements including OTN and FlexE focusing on RAN/CN of slice resources, LCM of
aspects virtualized NEs/NSs

Release 14 (TR) Release 15 (Phase 1) Release 16 (Phase 2) 5G Evolution

R15-Stage1 R15-Stage2 R15-Stage3

Q1 Q2 Q3 Q4 Q1 Q2 Q3 Q4 Q1 Q2 Q3 Q4 Q1 Q2 Q3 Q4 Q1 Q2 Q3 Q4 Q1 Q2 Q3 Q4
2016 2017 2018 2019 2020 2021

Complete the design of Complete the design of Complete the standardization

network slicing’s use cases, management interfaces/ of slice roaming and fits
requirements and architecture processes of network slicing business mode in R16

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 ZTE provides an E2E Network Slicing Solution

E2E Slice Orchestration and management

ZTE CloudStudio (NCO, NFVO, VNFM)
ZTE 5G Radio
IT BBU, SDR+, Cloud Radio Design Deployment Monitoring Security

ZTE CommonCore
Converged, Cloud Native, SBA

MEC vCDN MEC vCDN vCN-U vCN-C

CU vCN-U CU vCN-U
AAU DU/CU Access Points Edge DC Core DC

eMBB eMBB ZTE BN Solutions

Normal forwarding
mMTC mMTC FlexE, IP+Optical, SDN
uRLLC High-speed forwarding uRLLC

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 CN/RAN BN Slice Operation

From NFV to Cloud Native – 5G Common Core SBA

NF decoupled SBA(Service based architecture)

App
components
VNFC VNFC VNFC
HW & SW Standard API
Common
decoupled components
VNFC VNFC VNFC
Standard API
VNF VNF VNF Data
components VNFC VNFC VNFC

Virtualization VM Container BM

Multi-tiered DCs heterogeneous resource pool

l Dedicated HW l NF virtualized l Microservices-based, stateless, and

l Rigid and closed l Cloudified and elastic customized on-demand
l Flexible deployment across DCs

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 CN/RAN BN Slice Operation

From SDR to Cloud Radio – Cloud RAN and CUPS

mMTC: 5G AAU DU CU
l Massive connections
l Delay insensitive
l Sensitive to cost AAU/DU co-site

5G AAU+DU CU
eMBB:
l High bandwidth
l Differentiated CU/DU co-site for low latency
requirements of latency
5G AAU DU+CU
uRLLC:
AAU/DU/CU co-site for ultra-low latency
l Low latency
l HA 5G
l Cost insensitive AAU+DU+CU
Remote site Access point Edge DC

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 CN/RAN BN Slice Operation

Flexible resource sharing enables diverse scenarios

Mode I: Mode II: Mode III:
Independent Part of C-plane NFs shared All C-plane NFs shared Sharing mode
Slice1 Slice2 Slice3 Slice4 Slice5 Slice6 Mode I
PCF PCF High requirement of isolation
PCF UDM and cost insensitive;
PCF SMF
SMF SMF For remote medical treatment or
industrial automation
AMF SMF UDM AMF
UDM AMF
Mode II
Medium requirement of
UPF UPF UPF UPF UPF UPF isolation and the terminal
accesses to multi-NSs
CU CU CU simultaneously;
For driving assistance or in-
DU DU DU vehicle entertainment

AAU AAU AAU

Mode III
Low requirement of isolation
and cost sensitive;
For video surveillance, mobile
video or intelligent meterage.

Remote medical In-Vehicle Driving video Mobile Intelligent

treatment Entertainment assistance surveillance video meterage
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 CN/RAN BN Slice Operation

A unified elastic bearer network to support flexible CN/RAN slicing

Access Point Edge DC Core DC

DU NRT DU
vCN-U vCDN
vCDN vCN-U vCN-C
5G AAU+DU+CU
5G AAU DU CU
Fronthaul

5G AAU+DU
5G AAU+DU
Midhaul

Backhaul 25GE/50GE/100GE FlexE

NRT
5G AAU+DU+CU

N*10G/25G

Flexhaul Transport Solution

l Ultra-high bandwidth
eMBB eMBB
Normal forwarding l Ultra-low latency
mMTC mMTC
l Slicing on-demand
uRLLC High-speed forwarding uRLLC
l Elastic scale-in/scale-out

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 CN/RAN BN Slice Operation

Elastic Networks built with SDN based forwarding plane and

resource scheduling

GSO
SMF
CU UPF AMF
SDNO NFVO
Service-oriented ‘soft-slice’
supports E2E networking
The hierarchical
SDN controllers
‘hard-slice’ with
differentiated SLA
vNet
Controller guarantees service
vNet vNET3
vNET2 isolation
vNET1

Physical NE supports VR/LR,

enabling resource slicing
pNet
and isolation
Controller pNET

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 CN/RAN BN Slice Operation

Putting it all together: DevOps based Slice Management

Slice Operation SLA Model Definition

B2C and B2B2C slice operational E2E SLA model definition and
model splitting

Slice Assurance DevOps Slice Design

Slice self-healing and
self-optimization
Workflow Slice design, pre-deployment
and testing

Slice Isolation Slice Deployment

Slice resource isolation and Creating and Changing of slices
management isolation and sub-slices

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 CN/RAN BN Slice Operation

Slice Design: Model-based, visual, automated

Unified design center, unified information model for the whole Built-in automatic testing tool, loading testing use cases,
network, allowing network-wise interconnection enabling automatic testing

Network Slice
TEST

model
5G network slice
Network Service
ETSI standard
model defined by
Network service

,
Nested NS Slice Subnet , ,
,
Test VM
PNF VNF NF PNF
NSSF
LB UDM ,
,
VNFC NF Service
AMF
Sec SMF
MQ UPF
DB

Closed-loop
Design
Multiple • Network slice design
• Service process design
design • Unified policy design
Automatic
capabilities Config. UPF AMF UDM

Rich certified NSSF PCF

Slice template
components

A library of certified components for network, Simulating actual environmental parameters and conducting
drag-and-drop editing, WYSIWYG pre-deployment in cloud testing environment
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 CN/RAN BN Slice Operation

Multi-Layer orchestration for automatic slice deployment

Network Service
Instantiation Request
Customer Service Slice Deployment Sub-slice Deployment NFVO/NCO
Order Request Request
CSMF NSMF NSSMF Network activation
Request
RAN/BN/CN EMS

Decomposing the Sending sub-slice

slice into 1~N sub- deployment requests
NSSMF Automatic Deployment
slices to NSSMF Translating the sub-slice deployment
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l The multi-layer orchestration
1 request into network service requests
realizes automatic
Sending service instantiation requests provisioning of services and
to NFVO
NSMF slices
Initiating network service l Support the deployment of
2 3 configuration requests cross-domain & cross-DC
Parsing the slicing Choosing the right slice
request and sub-slice Reporting NSMF the deployment
decomposing it into instantiations or result l Support whole process
sub-slicing requests deployments model-driven

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 CN/RAN BN Slice Operation

Artificial Intelligence to simplify slice management

Unified Policy Center Slice Management

Intelligence
l The policy empowered by AI
realizes the self-generation and
self-optimization of policies
Orchestration & Analysis & l The design empowered by AI
Design Center realizes the self-learning and
Management Monitoring
prediction of slice models
l The orchestration empowered
by AI realizes the intelligent
dispatching of resources and
optimal configurations
5G E2E Network Slices
l The monitoring empowered by
Network Slice AI realizes self-optimization of
slices and quick healing on faults

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 CN/RAN BN Slice Operation

Network Slice selection requires UE prticipation

User Equipment (UE) Industry Wide Cooperation

• Fixed
•
•
Smartphone
Sensors
Required
• Connected devices…

NSSAI
(Network Slice Selection
l Availability of terminals with
Assistance Information) required capabilities
l End to end testing of the slicing
5G E2E Network Slices operation including terminals
l Multi-vendor interoperability
Network Slice l Multi-network interoperability

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 CN/RAN BN Slice Operation

NSaaS opens up new business models for Industry verticals

Slice
Customer Slice Operation
l Extending from the traffic
Network Slice as a Service (NSaaS) operation of 4G era to the
slice operation of 5G era
Network Slice Capability l Network as a service flexibly
Exposure Platform provides proprietary
Slice network services to industry
Operation customers
On-demand Automatic Close-loop Intelligent Security
design deployment assurance analysis isolation
l The slice and service can be
further combined to be
provided to the end
Sliced customer as a whole
Network Slice Network Slice Network Slice
Networks

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 Summary
Technology Readiness
ü 5G RAN: Unified frame structure, uRLLC,
eMBB, mMTC, Cloud RAN, CUPS
ü Core Network: Cloud Native, SBA, Stateless
The industry is moving ü Bearer Network: SDN, FlexE, OTN based
from NFV to Cloud slicing
Native network
architectures, enabling Operation/Business Model Changes
E2E Network Slicing
Ø DevOps (tools, organisation, training,
processes)
Ø NSaaS to open up new business
opportunities with industry verticals
Ø Rethink the traditional models of MVNO,
Network Sharing, etc.
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Thank You