Network slicing (NS) is becoming an essential element of service management and orchestration in communication networks, starting from mobile cellular networks and extending to a global initiative. NS can reshape the deployment and operation of traditional services, support the introduction of new ones, vastly advance how resource allocation performs in networks, and notably change the user experience. Most of these promises still need to reach the real world, but they have already demonstrated their capabilities in many experimental infrastructures. However, complexity, scale, and dynamism are pressuring for a Machine Learning (ML)-enabled NS approach in which autonomy and efficiency are critical features. This trend is relatively new but growing fast and attracting much attention. This article surveys Artificial Intelligence-enabled NS and its potential use in current and future infrastructures. We have covered state-of-the-art ML-enabled NS for all network segments and organized the literature according to the phases of the NS life cycle. We also discuss challenges and opportunities in research on this topic.

As society evolves as a whole, new demands arise with increasingly demanding prerequisites, consequently requiring more significant effort to be met. Such demands cover emerging applications, such as remote surgeries in Smart Health use cases, whose latency and reliability network requirements cannot be met by current communication systems; or simply improving current applications with more challenging requirements to be achieved, such as increasing the transmission rate in a mobile network, offering Quality of Service (QoS), and consequently, better user experience. Therefore, enabling technologies must be chosen to design an appropriate 6G architecture to address such demands. However, the explosion of emerging applications focused on different scopes and requirements to be met makes choosing these enabling technologies extremely complex and unpredictable. Thus, this article aims to create a methodology for analyzing the relevance of enabling technologies and use it to design an optimal architecture capable of meeting the 6G demands. For this purpose, two methods named as Average (AVG) and Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) have been selected, whose objective is to determine the relevance of an enabler for the 6G architecture, taking into account different degrees of influencing variables for this analysis, such as adherence to a certain architectural model; popularity in the research area; degree of innovation; synergy with other enablers; and support for requirements. Each of these methods presents a particular result. In the case of the AVG method, the criteria and variables are evaluated independently, and the arithmetic mean is employed to combine the evaluations into a single measure of suitability. In contrast, the AHP method considers the relative importance of criteria and variables in order to classify an optimal set of enabling technologies capable of fulfilling the key roles to be performed by a 6G architecture, and consequently meeting the main 6G demands. Our evaluation provides a unique perspective on 6G enablers, identifying issues and fostering research for future mobile architectures. The results obtained also provide researchers with the necessary information to stay updated on emerging enabling technologies and their suitability for designing new optimized 6G architectures.

Network Slicing (NS) is an essential technique extensively used in 5G networks computing strategies, mobile edge computing, mobile cloud computing, and verticals like the Internet of Vehicles and industrial IoT, among others. NS is foreseen as one of the leading enablers for 6G futuristic and highly demanding applications since it allows the optimization and customization of scarce and disputed resources among dynamic, demanding clients with highly distinct application requirements. Various standardization organizations, like 3GPP’s proposal for new generation networks and state-of-the-art 5G/6G research projects, are proposing new NS architectures. However, new NS architectures have to deal with an extensive range of requirements that inherently result in having NS architecture proposals typically fulfilling the needs of specific sets of domains with commonalities. The Slicing Future Internet Infrastructures (SFI2) architecture proposal explores the gap resulting from the diversity of NS architectures target domains by proposing a new NS reference architecture with a defined focus on integrating experimental networks and enhancing the NS architecture with Machine Learning (ML) native optimizations, energy-efficient slicing, and slicing-tailored security functionalities. The SFI2 architectural main contribution includes the utilization of the slice-as-a-service paradigm for end-to-end orchestration of resources across multi-domains and multi-technology experimental networks. In addition, the SFI2 reference architecture instantiations will enhance the multi-domain and multi-technology integrated experimental network deployment with native ML optimization, energy-efficient aware slicing, and slicing-tailored security functionalities for the practical domain.

Internet access and service utilization has been exploding in mobile devices, through the leverage of WLAN, 3G and now LTE connections. It is this explosion as well that is stressing the underlying fabric of the Internet, and motivating new solutions, such as Software Defined Networking (SDN), to build the controlling support and extension capabilities of the Future Internet. However, SDN has yet to reach the necessary traction to be deployed, and has been more relayed towards experimentation supporting frameworks and away from wireless environments. This paper explores SDN mechanisms and increments them with Media Independent Handover services from the IEEE 802.21 standard, coupling them in a single framework for the dynamic optimized support of OpenFlow path establishment and wireless connectivity establishment. The framework was implemented over open-source software in a physical testbed, with results showing the benefits that this solution brings in terms of performance and signaling overhead, when compared with more basic approaches.