METIS: A Declarative Slice Orchestrator for Application-Centric 5G/6G Networks

2026-07-31

AI Summary

Current 5G/6G networks lack an end-to-end collaborative management mechanism spanning the full lifecycle of network slices. This work proposes METIS, a declarative orchestrator that introduces, for the first time, an application-oriented data model and a cascaded coordination architecture to enable automated orchestration across Day-0, Day-1, and Day-2 phases. METIS generates 3GPP-compliant configurations from application semantics, integrates cross-domain control between O-RAN and 3GPP, and uncovers a structural asymmetry wherein uplink SLAs critically depend on radio-side execution. Experimental results on a cloud-native testbed demonstrate that METIS supports slice creation in 22.4 seconds, updates in 5.1 seconds, and recovery in under 19 seconds, while guaranteeing 100% SLA compliance under concurrent overload and scaling to 63 instances with less than 0.03 CPU cores.

Abstract

Network slicing is the cornerstone of application-aware 5G and 6G networks, yet dynamic lifecycle management of network slice instances with coordinated quality-of-service enforcement across the radio access network and core network remains unresolved. Existing orchestrators rely on network-centric data models, imperative workflows, and static slice templates, while O-RAN addresses radio-side slice control independently of 3GPP core-side control, leaving slice-level quality-of-service enforcement uncoordinated across domains. This paper introduces METIS, a declarative slice orchestrator that manages the Day-0/1/2 lifecycle of network slice instances through cascaded reconciliation loops. METIS defines an application-centric data model for service profiles, enabling customers to describe the semantics and quality-of-experience requirements of their applications. From these, METIS derives 3GPP-aligned slice profiles via hierarchical aggregation following the 5G quality-of-service model, eliminating static templates, and jointly coordinates O-RAN and 3GPP slicing for slice instantiation and enforcement. Our central finding is a structural asymmetry in end-to-end slice control: downlink traffic can be shaped at the core before reaching the radio access network, but uplink leaves the user equipment unregulated, so core-only slicing cannot reliably satisfy uplink service-level agreements - radio-side enforcement is necessary, not merely complementary. Evaluated on a 5G cloud-native testbed in a campus-event scenario, METIS completes slice creation, update, upgrade, and deletion within 22.4, 5.1, 52.2, and 32.1 seconds, respectively; sustains full service-level-agreement satisfaction under concurrent multi-slice overload; scales to 63 slice instances across nine zones consuming under 0.03 processor cores total; and recovers slices from injected failures across four levels in under 19 seconds.

Problem

• network slicing
• quality-of-service
• 5G/6G networks
• slice lifecycle management
• O-RAN and 3GPP coordination

Innovation

• declarative orchestration
• application-centric slicing
• O-RAN and 3GPP coordination
• QoE-to-QoS mapping
• end-to-end slice lifecycle management