5G-Crosshaul Network Slicing: Enabling Multi-Tenancy in Mobile Transport Networks

5G requires a redesign of transport networks in order to feed the increasingly bandwidth hungry radio access networks and to benefit from the performance/cost efficiency provided by the integration of both backhaul and fronthaul segments over the same transport substrate as well as the incorporation of cloud RAN architectures. In addition, to increase its usage and cost efficiency, this new transport network should allow simultaneous use by different tenants (e.g. MVNOs, OTTs, and vertical industries). This article presents the 5G transport network architecture designed in the 5G-Crosshaul project to address this challenge. An SDN/NFV-based control plane has been designed that enables multi-tenancy through network slicing. The proposed solution allows for flexible and efficient allocation of transport network resources (networking and computing) to multiple tenants by leveraging on widespread architectural frameworks for NFV (ETSI NFV) and SDN (e.g., Open Daylight and ONOS).