Media information: World’s first 5G autonomous network slicing

• Another innovation milestone in programmable networks on the way to 5G
• Automatic network slice creation ensures intelligent allocation of resources
• Network slicing is designed to serve customers’ diverse use cases in the 5G era

Deutsche Telekom and Huawei demonstrate yet another world first 5G technology with the addition of end-to-end autonomous behavior for 5G network slicing.

The partners previously demonstrated the world’s first end-to-end 5G system to validate network slicing technology for diverse 5G use case demands. Building on that software defined foundation, this autonomous end-to-end network slicing implementation adds dynamic and real-time slicing of the 5G

Radio Access network (RAN) and Data Center (DC), as well the interconnecting transmission network. The demo has been conducted in Deutsche Telekom’s 5G:haus lab based in Bonn, Germany. It shows how different network slices can be created automatically in an optimized way on a shared RAN, Core and transport network. This allows slices creation in sub-minute time while ensuring an efficient and intelligent allocation and re-allocation of resources as required for each individual slice.

"Network Slicing is envisaged for 5G to provide differentiated connectivity quickly and efficiently for the diverse future applications that our customers will demand. With automated network slicing, the development of highly flexible end-to-end network slicing becomes more complete,” said Bruno Jacobfeuerborn, Chief Technology Officer, Deutsche Telekom.

“Huawei has made significant key 5G technologies. This additional breakthrough on E2E network slicing automation is a great contribution to the 5G industry of the future and helps to bring the vision of 5G slicing closer to reality for our customers,”said Dr. Wen Tong, Huawei Fellow, CTO, Huawei Wireless.

How it is implemented

E2E network slicing is a foundational technology which is required to support diversified 5G services and is a key to the 5G network architecture evolution.

In that context, Enhanced Mobile Broadband (eMBB), massive Machine Type Communication (mMTC), Ultra-Reliable Low-Latency Communication (uRLLC) are envisaged network classes that could be built as slices. Each network slice is derived from a unified physical network infrastructure, which greatly reduces the operators' network construction costs. Network slices feature a logical arrangement of resources which operate as individual networks, which allows for heavily customizable service requirements.

E2E network slicing not only includes the core network and RAN, but also interconnecting transport networks. The demo conducted in DT’s 5G:haus innovation lab in Bonn, Germany implements bandwidth based transport network slicing. The transport network consists of TSDN controllers and underlying Dense Wave Division Mulitplexing (DWDM) nodes. The controllers generate a series of specific data forwarding paths based on slice topology and service requirements.

In this demo, real-time dynamic adjustments of network slices on very fine spectral granularity, signal process and protocol stack were validated.

F-[OFDM] air interface technology is the key to the spectral granularity and also permits efficient co-existence and isolation of all 5G New Radio (5G NR) slices.

The demo implements E2E network slicing automation based on Service Oriented Network Auto Creation (SONAC). It uses software-defined topology (SDT), software defined protocol (SDP) and software-defined resource allocation (SDRA) to ensure the automatic implementation of slice management, service deployment, resource scheduling, and fault recovery based strictly on a detailed and thorough network data analysis.