Network Slicing for 5G and Beyond

A special issue of Journal of Sensor and Actuator Networks (ISSN 2224-2708). This special issue belongs to the section "Communications and Networking".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (31 October 2021) | Viewed by 584

Special Issue Editors

University of Macedonia, Greece
Interests: network slicing; NFV; SDN; edge computing; datacenter networking
University of Macedonia, Greece
Interests: Internet of things; SDN; edge computing; network slicing
Huawei Technologies
Interests: deterministic communications; TSN; datenet; SDN; NFV; network slicing

Special Issue Information

Network slicing is set out to address crucial needs of 5G and beyond, including support for multi-service provisioning and multi-tenancy in virtualized infrastructures. Network slices essentially comprise bundles of computing, storage, and network resources, which are provisioned and managed in a unified manner. A network slice can be tailored to the needs of a particular service or traffic class, with examples in the context of 5G being enhanced mobile broadband (eMBB), ultra-reliable low-latency communications (URLLC), and massive IoT (MIoT). Network slicing has also found traction in the domain of edge computing, facilitating the deployment of cloud-native applications, such as location-based services.

In order to capitalize the gains from network slicing, it is necessary to have the ability to provision, manage, and orchestrate network slices at large scale, and among different and potentially heterogeneous 5G infrastructures. This raises the need for slicing orchestration architectures and platforms, as well as APIs for their interoperability with virtualized infrastructure managers and service orchestrators. Another important aspect in this respect is data models and abstractions for the representation of slice resources to the tenant in a unified manner.

Evolving service demands, as well as the need to support mobility, require efficient mechanisms for resource optimization and adaptation (e.g., auto-scaling). The timescales at which such mechanisms will be triggered is crucial in order to reduce the management overhead. At the same time, the coordination of resource migrations and network updates is necessary for the elimination of service disruptions.

In this context, the aim of this Special Issue is to discuss recent advances in the area of network slicing, with particular interest in network slicing architectures and orchestration platforms, mechanisms for slice placement, adaptation, and scaling, as well as the applicability of slicing at the network edge and in resource-constrained environments (e.g., MEC).

Dr. Panagiotis Papadimitriou
Dr. Lefteris Mamatas
Dr. Kostas Katsalis
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Journal of Sensor and Actuator Networks is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2000 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • Network slicing architectures
  • Slicing orchestration platforms
  • Slice abstractions and models
  • Multi-domain slice provisioning and management
  • Adaptation and resource optimization for network slicing
  • Network slicing for IoT-enabled applications
  • Data models and abstractions for network slicing
  • Cross-slice communication

Published Papers

There is no accepted submissions to this special issue at this moment.
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