End-to-end SDN/NFV orchestration of multi-domain transport networks and distributed computing infrastructure for beyond-5G services

Abstract

The need of telecommunications operators to reduce Capital and Operational Expenditures in networks which traffic is continuously growing has made them search for new alternatives to simplify and automate their procedures. Because of the different transport network segments and multiple layers, the deployment of end-to-end services is a complex task. Also, because of the multiple vendor existence, the control plane has not been fully homogenized, making end-to-end connectivity services a manual and slow process, and the allocation of computing resources across the entire network a difficult task. The new massive capacity requested by Data Centers and the new 5G connectivity services will urge for a better solution to orchestrate the transport network and the distributed computing resources. This article presents and demonstrates a Network Slicing solution together with an end-to-end service orchestration for transport networks. The Network Slicing solution permits the co-existence of virtual networks (one per service) over the same physical network to ensure the specific service requirements. The network orchestrator allows automated end-to-end services across multi-layer multi-domain network segments making use of the standard Transport API (TAPI) data model for both l0 and l2 layers. Both solutions will allow to keep up with beyond 5G services and the higher and faster demand of network and computing resources.