A Cloud-based SDN/NFV Testbed for End-to-End Network Slicing in 4G/5G

Abstract

Network slicing aims to shape 5G as a flexible, scalable, and demand-oriented network. Research communities deploy small-scale and cost-efficient testbeds in order to evaluate network slicing functionalities. We introduce a novel testbed, called 5GIIK, that provides implementation, management, and orchestration of network slices across all network domains and different access technologies. Our methodology identifies design criteria that are a superset of the features present in other state-of-the-art testbeds and determines appropriate open-source tools for implementing them. 5GIIK is one of the most comprehensive testbeds because it provides additional features and capabilities such as slice provision dynamicity, real-time monitoring of VMs and VNF-onboarding to different VIMs. We illustrate the potentials of the proposed testbed and present initial results.