Building complex entities like Network Slices and their Subnets requires proper models and methods to allow their convenient design and deployment. Despite significant progress in the standardization of the basic Network Slicing concepts, for many it still remains unclear how to organize a Network Slice/Subnet design process that would be aligned to the currently standardized, declarative style of their provisioning. How to reflect the high-level, abstract service requirements into a technical description of a Network Slice/Subnet capable of fulfilling them? In what form should such a description be provided? What details should it cover and how to conduct a design process leading to the production of a concretized description of the desired Network Slice Instance (NSI) and/or Network Slice Subnet Instance (NSSI)? Unfortunately, the current standardization scope does not cover these challenging design-time aspects, leaving the telco community without clear guidelines in this complicated area. Also, the state-of-the-art research does not tackle the corresponding challenges in a generic and holistic way. We contribute to fill in this void by complementing the up-to-date standards with original concepts and systematizations compiled into a comprehensive tutorial on the Network Slicing design-time aspects. To this end, we deliver a broad study of the evolution of Network Slice/Subnet provisioning approaches and offering modes, explaining their impact on the design phase. Next, we provide a generic taxonomy of building blocks out of which an NSI/NSSI may be designed, followed by proposing precise definitions of the design process and its expected outcomes. Then, by elaborating on those definitions, we explain, in a technology-agnostic manner, the activities comprising the design process and the results it shall produce. Based on these fundamentals, we describe the opportunities for automating the design process, essential to support the declarative provisioning style and to offer the “dynamic slicing” capabilities by the Slicing orchestrators. All of the elaborated systematizations and concepts are vendor-agnostic and fully standards-aligned which makes them practically usable in a wide range of solutions.

中文翻译：

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关于组织符合标准的网络切片/子网设计流程及其自动化机会的综合教程


构建网络切片及其子网等复杂实体需要适当的模型和方法，以方便设计和部署。尽管基本网络切片概念的标准化取得了重大进展，但对于许多人来说，仍然不清楚如何组织网络切片/子网设计流程，使其与当前标准化的声明式配置风格保持一致。如何将高层、抽象的服务需求反映到能够满足这些需求的网络切片/子网的技术描述中？应该以什么形式提供这样的描述？它应涵盖哪些细节以及如何进行设计过程以生成所需网络切片实例 (NSI) 和/或网络切片子网实例 (NSSI) 的具体描述？不幸的是，当前的标准化范围并未涵盖这些具有挑战性的设计时方面，导致电信界在这个复杂的领域没有明确的指导方针。此外，最先进的研究并没有以通用和整体的方式解决相应的挑战。我们通过将原始概念和系统化补充到最新标准中来填补这一空白，并将其编译成有关网络切片设计时方面的综合教程。为此，我们对网络切片/子网配置方法和提供模式的演变进行了广泛的研究，解释了它们对设计阶段的影响。接下来，我们提供了可以设计 NSI/NSSI 的构建块的通用分类法，然后提出设计过程及其预期结果的精确定义。 然后，通过详细阐述这些定义，我们以与技术无关的方式解释了包含设计过程及其应产生的结果的活动。基于这些基础知识，我们描述了自动化设计过程的机会，这对于支持声明性配置风格并通过切片编排器提供“动态切片”功能至关重要。所有精心设计的系统化和概念都与供应商无关，并且完全符合标准，这使得它们在广泛的解决方案中实际可用。