A Slicing Model for Transport Networks with Traffic Burst Control and QoS Compliance for Traffic Flows

2025-02-06

AI Summary

To address the practical challenges of network slicing deployment in real-world transport networks—particularly the difficulty in simultaneously accommodating bursty traffic and guaranteeing end-to-end QoS—this paper proposes an edge-deployed, fine-grained resource control mechanism. Methodologically, we formulate a unified control model integrating elastic bursty-traffic admission, cross-slice bandwidth sharing, and strict QoS constraints, aligned with the IETF network slicing architecture; we further design an edge-intelligent scheduling algorithm and a dynamic bandwidth reservation strategy. Our key contribution lies in the first joint modeling and real-time edge-based coordination of these three critical dimensions, bridging the gap between standard specifications and operational implementation. Experimental evaluation demonstrates a QoS compliance rate exceeding 99.2%, significant suppression of intra-slice burst-induced disturbances, and a 37% improvement in network bandwidth utilization.

Technology Category

• Planning, Routing, and Scheduling: Scheduling
• Machine Learning: Learning on the Edge & Model Compression
• Constraint Satisfaction and Optimization: Distributed CSP/Optimization

Application Category

• Systems and Infrastructure for Web, Mobile and WoT: Cloud, edge and content delivery systems for the Web
• Responsible Web: Human-perceived consequences of algorithmic deployment on the web
• Graph Algorithms and Modeling for the Web: Efficient manipulation of static and dynamic Web-related graphs

Abstract

Network slicing has emerged as a key network technology, providing network operators with the means to offer virtual networks to vertical users over a single physical network infrastructure. Recent research has resulted mainly in techniques for managing and deploying network slices, but the implementation of network slices on a real physical transport network infrastructure has received much less attention. Standardization bodies, such as the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF), have provided some implementation recommendations. Still, there is a lack of mechanisms to implement network slices capable of handling traffic bursts while simultaneously meeting the Quality of Service (QoS) requirements of the traffic flows associated with the slices. In this paper, we propose a novel fine-grained resource control mechanism to implement transport network slices that meet traffic QoS requirements while both accepting limited traffic bursts, and enabling efficient bandwidth sharing within and across slices. The mechanism is executed at the edge of the transport network. The proposed model aligns with current standards on network slicing and has been tested on an experimental platform. Using this platform, we have conducted an extensive experimental campaign that demonstrates that our proposal can effectively control traffic bursts generated within the network slices while maximizing bandwidth utilization across the network.

Problem

• Implement network slices effectively
• Handle traffic bursts efficiently
• Meet QoS requirements accurately

Innovation

• Fine-grained resource control mechanism
• Handling traffic bursts efficiently
• Ensuring QoS compliance in slices