Introduction from the Guest Editors

5G networks are expected to provide virtually-unlimited-gigabit and ultra-reliable connections to people and objects, when and where it matters, supporting diverse use cases with an extremely demanding range of requirements (in terms of latency, throughput, reliability, coverage and security, cost targets, etc.). However, building a network that supports a broad array and diverse set of new services, all of which can be set up, dynamically reconfigured, scaled and torn down at a moment's notice introduces several challenges. Unprecedented operational agility is required to allow services to be rapidly deployed, dynamically adapted, and continuously and seamlessly assured. The management layer has in its own scope to maintain the overall capabilities of the network, e.g., to resolve any faults, degradations that might have negative implications on the active services. Additionally, it should be able to dynamically manage the available virtual, transport and radio resources in order to maintain the SLA of the established services within the extent of the intrinsic capabilities and resources of the system.