ONETS: Online Network Slice Broker From Theory to Practice

Virtualization and network slicing offer an unprecedented opportunity to mobile network operators: open their physical network infrastructure platform to the concurrent deployment of multiple logical self-contained networks, namely
network slices
. In this paper, we propose and analyze
ONETS
, an Online NETwork Slicing solution that
$\textbf {i}$
) builds on the budgeted lock-up multi-armed bandit mathematical model and properties,
$\textbf {ii}$
) derives its analytical bounds in our proposed extension for network slicing,
$\textbf {iii}$
) seamlessly integrates into the 3GPP architecture,
$\textbf {iv}$
) proves its feasibility through a proof-of-concept implementation on commercial hardware considering three network slices and
$\textbf {v}$
) allows for the design of a low-complexity online network slice brokering solution that maximizes multiplexing gains.