What is 5G network slicing? What kind of cutting with a knife ?, What is 5 GB

What is 5G network slicing? What kind of cutting with a knife ?, What is 5 GB

If a 4G network is used as a knife, it can be ground-blown or broken. 5G networks are a Swiss Army knife, which is flexible, convenient, and versatile.

4G networks are mainly produced by smartphones. In the 5G era, we will face the next big thing-Iot. In the era of No-things and no-things, there will be a large number of devices connected to the network. These devices belong to different industrial fields and have different characteristics and needs. In other words, they have different requirements for Network Mobility, security, latency, reliability, and even billing methods. Therefore, 5G networks must be as flexible, convenient, and versatile as Swiss Army knives.

Here are two examples.

In Iot applications used for forest fire prevention, a large number of sensors distributed in the forest are used to detect temperature, humidity, and precipitation. They are static, they do not need mobility management like smart phones, such as switchover and location update. According to a NOKIA report, 70% of the 5G networks are expected to remain static, and only 30% of mobile users are expected.

When 5G is used in self-driving, remote robot control, and other fields, it requires ultra-low end-to-end latency, which is much lower than the latency of smart phone wireless Internet access, usually within several milliseconds.

Therefore, for different application fields, 5G networks are like Swiss Army knives. What should I do? When we talk about 5g in the world, the most talked about in the communication industry is Network Slicing ). Network slicing has become the most ideal 5G network architecture recognized by China Mobile, KT, SK Telecom, KDDI and NTT in Japan, and Ericsson, Nokia,  and other equipment vendors.

What is a network slice?

The simplest understanding is to cut a physical network into multiple virtual end-to-end networks. Each virtual network includes devices, access, transmission, and core networks in the network, it is logically independent, and failure of any virtual network will not affect other virtual networks. Each virtual network is like a pliers or saw on a Swiss Army knife. It has different features and is oriented to different needs and services.

Or you can say that, just like when you install a computer, you divide your physical hard disk into C, D, and E disks...

To further understand 5G network slicing, we first divide 5G network application scenarios into three categories: mobile broadband, mass IoT, and Mission-critical IoT ).

As shown in the table above, the service requirements for three 5G network application scenarios are different:

(1) mobile broadband

In the 5G era, applications such as 4 K/8 K Ultra-HD videos, holographic technology, and augmented reality/virtual reality will be oriented. The main demand for mobile broadband is higher data capacity.

(2) Massive Iot

Massive sensors are deployed in measurement, construction, agriculture, logistics, smart city, home, and other fields. These sensors are very intensive and mostly static.

(3) mission-critical Iot

Task-critical Iot is mainly used in self-driving, automatic factory, smart grid, and other fields. Its main demands are ultra-low latency and high reliability.

4G networks are mainly used by people, and smart phones are the main devices connected to the network. Network slicing is not required for different application scenarios.

In the 5G era, different devices in different fields access a large number of networks, and the network will be oriented to three application scenarios: mobile broadband, massive Internet of Things, and mission-critical Internet of Things.

How to slice the network? We do not need to build a network for each type of application scenario, so it is not like this...

What we need to do is to divide a physical network into multiple virtual Logical Networks. Each Virtual Network corresponds to different application scenarios. This is called network slicing.

The architecture of network slicing in the 5g white paper is as follows:

How can we complete end-to-end network slicing? The content above is too abstract. How do we implement it in actual network deployment?

1. 5G Wireless Access Network and core network: NFV

Currently, the main terminal devices in 4G networks are mobile phones. The Wireless Access Network (including the digital unit (DU), RF unit (RU) and core network components all use dedicated devices provided by equipment vendors.

For example:

To achieve Network slicing, Network Function Virtualization (NFV) is a prerequisite. In essence, the so-called NFV is the hardware and software functions of dedicated equipment in the network (such as MME, S/P-GW and PCRF in the core network, the digital unit DU in the wireless access network, etc) transfer to a Virtual machine (VMs. These virtual hosts are commercial servers based on industry standards. They are commercial and ready-to-use COTS products with low cost and easy installation. Simply put, we use servers, storage devices, and network devices based on industry standards to replace dedicated network meta devices in the network.

After functional virtualization, the wireless access network is called Edge Cloud, and the Core network is called Core Cloud ). VMs in the edge cloud and VMs in the core cloud are interconnected through SDN (Software Defined network.

In this way, after using NFV and SDN, it is very easy to execute slice. Just like cutting bread, you can horizontally split the network into multiple virtual subnetworks (slices.

As shown in, the network is "split" into four "slices" for different application scenarios ":

• HD video slicing: after the original network's digital unit (DU) and some core network functions are virtualized, the storage servers are added to the edge cloud. Some of the virtualized core network functions are placed in the core cloud.
• Cell phone slicing: after the original network wireless access part of the digital unit (DU) is virtualized, it is placed in the edge cloud. The core network functions of the original network, including IMS, are virtualized and placed into the core cloud.
• Massive Iot slicing: because most sensors are still and do not require mobility management, the core cloud tasks are relatively easy and simple in all these films.
• Task-critical Iot slicing: due to high latency requirements, the core network functions and related servers of the original network sink to the edge cloud to minimize end-to-end latency.

The network structure is as follows:

Of course, the network slicing technology is not limited to these types of slicing, it is flexible, and operators can customize their own virtual networks according to application scenarios as they wish.

2. Connection Between edge cloud and core cloud: IP/MPLS-SDN

The 5g slice network connects the edge cloud and VMs in the core cloud through SDN. The core cloud contains virtual servers, and the Hypervisor of the server runs the built-in vRouter/vSwitch. the SDN Controller is responsible for creating SDN tunnels between the virtual server and the dc g/W router. Subsequently, the SDN controller maps SDN tunnels and MPLS L3 VPN to establish a connection between the core cloud and the edge cloud.

3. Network slicing of edge cloud and base station RF units

Now let's go to the forward part. How do I complete the slicing between a 5G RF unit (RU) and the edge cloud (forward transmission? First, we need to define the 5g pre-Transfer Standard. Currently, there is no unified standard. Is the International Telecommunications Union (ITU) 5G mobile communication standards Research Group (Focus Group on IMT-2020) once proposed a virtualized Prepass structure, interested can look:

This is the 5G network slicing technology. With this technology, 5G will become a Swiss Army knife that is sharp in the wireless network field.