Isolation and Optimization Cost of Service-Based Radio Access Network Slicing: A Smart-Contract-Based Approach

Abstract

The service-based Radio Access Network (RAN) slicing enabled via Software Defined Networking (SDN) and Network Function Virtualization (NFV) can support diverse service requirements and address the rapid data traffic growth from both the vertical industry and the Internet of Things (IoT). However, network slice isolation and resource sharing between slices should be improved for future wireless network requirements. Firstly, this paper address the isolation enhancement of future wireless networks through Blockchain-Smart-Contract, by creating two smart-contract-based access control to secure access to different service-based RAN applications and secure the sharing of resources. These contract are Verification and Authorization Contract (VAC), as well as Misconduct and Revocation Contract (MRC). The proposed framework is designed to support key 6G service classes, such as enhanced Mobile Broadband (eMBB) and ultra-Reliable Low-Latency Communications (uRLLC), enabling high data rates and low-latency communication. Secondly, to ensure the service-based RAN achieves better isolation the optimization goal is to minimize the deployment cost to obtain the best deployment scheme. Hence, we divide the service-based RAN slice isolation deployment problem into two sub-problems, i.e., service-based RAN slice isolation and slice deployment problem, by formulating a Mixed Integer Linear Programming (MILP) model to minimize the deployment cost. Finally, to verify the feasibility of the design implementation an experimental platform is built and the results show the architecture achieves isolation enhancement through smart-contract and reduces the deployment cost by 78% and improve the isolation performance by 93% compared to the Blockchain-enabled Network Slice (BcNS) and the service-based RAN.