Slicing Challenges for Operators

The advent of 5G introduces the concept of network slicing which is meant to permit network service providers to overcome the great challenge of forthcoming 5G services: how to support and operate different kinds of services with very distinct needs onto the same infrastructure. Deploying altogether on the same network makes it quite difficult to define a common architecture capable of keeping the diverse requirements of all of them. The network slicing concept foresees a number of logically independent slices, each comprising different network nodes and service functions, which are interconnected and are involved in the delivery and the operation of a specific service. By instantiating network slices, the network will be able to provide completely different services in a dynamic way over the same infrastructure. This chapter overviews the challenges raised by the implementation of the network slicing concept and which will be faced by the network operators.