Bridging 5G Realities to 6G Visions: A Tutorial and a Cognitive End-to-End Framework for 6G Orchestration and Management

Abstract

The transition from 5G toward Beyond 5G (B5G) and 6G is expanding orchestration and management (ORM) from domain-specific resource control to end-to-end coordination across communication, computation, intelligence, security, and infrastructure automation. Despite progress in softwarization, slicing, edge integration, and programmable control, current 5G ORM remains fragmented across domains, standards, tools, and platforms, limiting unified service assurance and closed-loop autonomy. This paper provides a structured tutorial on 5G ORM by connecting architectural foundations, enabling technologies, use cases, standards, platforms, and operational practices with key performance indicators (KPI) and key value indicators (KVI)-driven objectives. It further analyzes the evolutionary trends shaping 6G ORM, including network automation, artificial intelligence/machine learning (AI/ML), intelligent management, edge–cloud continuum exploitation, advanced slicing, non-terrestrial integration, and quantum-aware communication and security. Building on this analysis, we propose CORNEA-6G (Cognitive and Orchestration StandaRd-driveN End-to-end Architecture for 6G), an end-to-end, cognitive, quantum-aware, and standards-aligned architecture for future 6G ORM across communication, computation, and infrastructure domains. CORNEA-6G links service intent, autonomous management, orchestration, and infrastructure execution to support cross-domain coordination and measurable operation. To strengthen its relevance, the paper introduces a Secure Tropos-based threat model and a test-bed plan for security-aware and evaluable deployment. The proposed work serves as both a tutorial reference for 5G-to-6G ORM evolution and a blueprint for intelligent, secure, and interoperable 6G management systems.