A network slicing prototype for a flexible cloud radio access network

The next 5G infrastructure is expected to serve a multitude of services with heterogeneous requirements, which might be potentially managed by multiple Mobile Virtual Network Operators (MVNOs) that share the same network infrastructure. The new emerging technologies, such as i) Software Defined Networking (SDN), ii) Network Function Virtualization (NFV) and iii) Network Slicing, where physical resources are partitioned and allocated in an isolated manner to a set of services or to MVNOs according to a specific Service Level Agreement (SLA), are seen as the key enabling approaches to fulfill the diversity of requirements of 5G services in a cost-effective manner. In this paper, we design and prototype a network slicing solution, which we have developed in a Cloud-RAN (C-RAN) infrastructure based on the Open Air Interface (OAI) platform and FlexRAN SDN controller. The aim of our work is to validate the feasibility of the prototype in handling the creation and configuration of network slices on-demand, taking into account some requirements that are elaborated from SDN-based slicing applications. By means of emulations, we show that our prototype reacts well to the inputs coming from the SDN application and is finally capable of providing isolation among multiple slices in a dynamic fashion.