Extending the Network Service Descriptor to Capture User Isolation Intents for Network Slices

Abstract

The network slicing paradigm allows for partitioning a common network infrastructure into logical networks, i.e. network slices, tailored to specific user intents, including intents for isolation, security or performance reasons. A user may require isolation at different scopes: for the entire network slice, for the network slice subnets or for its composing network functions. Considering the relation between network slicing and Network Function Virtualization (NFV), the intents for isolation need to be mapped to and reflected in the descriptor(s) of network service(s) supporting the network slice(s). However, the network service descriptor (NSD) as defined today cannot capture all the network slice isolation requirements to be enforced during instantiation and at runtime. To overcome some of these limitations we propose extensions to the NSD based on our mapping of different isolation intents of the user to the NSD. We also show how to process the NSD extensions at instantiation and at runtime.