Adaptive network slicing in multi-tenant 5G IoT networks

Abstract

The Fifth Generation (5G) mobile networking coupled with Internet of Things (IoT) can provide innovative solutions for a wide range of uses cases. The flexibility of virtualized, softwarized and multi-tenant infrastructures and the high performance promised by 5G technology are key to cope with the deployment of the IoT use cases demanded by various vertical businesses. Such 5G IoT use cases incur challenging Quality of Service (QoS) requirements especially connectivity for millions of IoT devices to achieve massive Machine-Type Communication (mMTC). In addition, network slicing is a key enabling technology in 5G multi-tenant networks to create logical virtualized networks for delivering customised solutions to meet diverse QoS requirements. This work presents a 5G IoT framework with network slicing capabilities able to manage a vast number of heterogeneous IoT network slices dynamically on demand. The proposed solution has been empirically tested and validated in five realistic vertical-oriented IoT use cases. The achieved results demonstrate a excellent stability, isolation and scalability while being able to meet extreme QoS requirements even in the most congested and stressful scenarios.