Integrated Network and End-host Policy Management for Network Slicing

5G mobile networks introduce the concept of network slicing, the functionality of creating virtual networks on top of shared physical infrastructure. Such slices can be tailored to various vertical services. A single User Equipment (UE) may be served by multiple network slice instances simultaneously, which opens up the possibility of dynamically steering traffic in response to the specific needs of individual applications – and as a reaction to events inside the network, e.g., network failures.This paper presents the PoLicy-based Architecture for Network Slicing (PLANS). In this policy framework, the network slice management entity in the 5G core and the UE can cooperatively optimize the usage of the available network slices via policy systems installed both inside the network and on the UE. The PLANS architecture has been implemented and evaluated in a 5G testbed. For two different case studies, we show how such a system can be leveraged to provide optimized services and increased robustness against network failures. First, we consider a drone autopilot scenario, and demonstrate how PLANS can reduce network-slice recovery time by more than 90%. Second, we illustrate for a 360°video streaming scenario how PLANS can help prevent video quality degradation when a network slice becomes unavailable.