A hybrid NFV/In-Network Computing MANO Architecture for provisioning Holographic Applications in the Metaverse

Innovative holographic applications such as holographic concerts have recently emerged. They are expected to play an important role in the Metaverse. Hybrid Network Function Virtualization (NFV) / IN-Network Computing (INC) network infrastructures are needed to provision them as recently shown in the literature. INC is an emerging technology that aims to distribute the computational workload across the network by placing computational tasks on programmable devices (e.g., routers or switches). However, the integration of INC in existing infrastructures does face significant management and orchestration challenges. Although the ETSI Management and Orchestration (MANO) architectural framework designed for 5G facilitates application provisioning in networks that are NFV enabled, it lacks support for networks that are INC enabled. Therefore it is necessary to have a new MANO architecture in order to provision applications which have both NFV and INC components. This paper proposes a hybrid NFV-INC MANO architecture for provisioning holographic applications in hybrid NFV/INC environment. The proposed architecture is an extension of the ETSI NFV MANO. It will certainlyplay an important role in 6G since many applications foreseen for 6G will have the same stringent requirements as holographic applications. It is evaluated through a proof of concept prototype. The following tools were used for the prototype: Open Source MANO (OSM) and Mininet emulator.