Time-Sensitive Software-Defined Networking: A Unified Control- Plane for TSN and SDN

5G is separated in three main use cases: Enhanced Mobile Broadband (eMBB), Massive Machine Type Communications (mMTC) and Ultra Reliable Low Latency Communications (uRLLC). All of them have different requirements for the core network of 5G. The 5G-PPP defines Software-Defined Networking (SDN) as a technology for the 5G core network. The IEEE 802.1 Time-Sensitive Networking (TSN) Task Group has published a draft for TSN in fronthaul networks. TSN enables the deterministic forwarding of traffic. The TSN-based fronthaul and the SDN-based core-network are so far configured separately. This paper presents a concept of a unified control-plane for both technologies, called Time-Sensitive Software-Defined Networking (TSSDN). A network can now consists of TSN and SDN devices. Depending on the connection requirements, either deterministic or non-deterministic paths can be set up. A prototype and a testbed have been implemented to assess TSSDN. Results show that the unified control-plane can establish paths using TSN- and SDN-devices.