Optimized flow assignment for applications with strict reliability and latency constraints using path diversity

Abstract The unprecedented increase in the number of smart connected devices invoked a plethora of diverse applications with different performance requirements stipulating various network management strategies. Ultra-reliable low-latency communication (URLLC), one of the promised 5G dimensions, is expected to enable mission-critical applications while adhering to the heterogeneity of their quality metrics. At its core, URLLC rests on the notion of providing stringent reliability and latency requirements, in which guaranteed network availability becomes a necessity. Network slicing (NS) is one of the key paradigms that can offer performance guarantees through customized network management of software defined networking (SDN). However, unlocking URLLC with network slicing based mechanisms requires careful demultiplexing of the network into various slices and proper assignment of traffic flows generated by ultra-reliable low latency applications over those slices. Within each slice, multiple disjoint paths may be selected to ensure the reliability requirement of the assigned application while meeting its latency constraint. Hence, we study, in this paper, the joint problem of forming end-to-end network slices, mapping URLLC applications to corresponding slices and assigning their traffic flows over multiple disjoint paths; then formulate it as a mixed integer program. Due to its complexity, we decompose the problem into two subproblems; end-to-end disjoint paths and traffic flow assignment for ultra-reliable low latency applications. Simulation results are presented for various scenarios to demonstrate the performance and scalability of the proposed decomposition approach as compared to the general formulation.