Anna Tzanakaki Physics Department, National and Kapodistrian University of Athens (NKUA)/IASA (p-ΝΕΤ member)
6G networks are expected to offer ubiquitous and advanced services for next generation sustainable, fair and resilient Information and Communication Technology (ICT) ecosystems. This introduces the need for extended connectivity of a huge number of devices, extreme levels of capacity and varying bandwidth granularity, increased user mobility with strict sustainability, efficiency and autonomy goals. In view of these, 6G involves convergence of a variety of advanced radio access technologies and the associated (edge and central cloud) compute resources, controlled through mobile core networks. In this context, high-capacity optical transport networks play a key role in providing flexible connectivity across technologies and domains. However, to enable seamless operations across a multiplicity of technologies, domains and infrastructures there is a need for solutions offering improved automation with real-time decision-making capabilities.
Network Intelligence can be used to automate and optimize complex interactions between different sets of network devices and domains in an efficient and practical manner. In this context, Intent-based networking (IBN) has been recently proposed to enhance the level of intelligence in communication networks. In contrast to conventional communication systems that rely on manual processes for their configuration, IBN defines a set of fully automated tools for the management and operation of the whole system. Using IBN, network administrators define a set of high-level intents (high level business objectives and service characteristics) and based on these the system identifies how to achieve the requested goals adopting Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML) techniques. IBN also allows intelligence to be embedded across all layers of the heterogeneous infrastructure enabling each domain to operate autonomously hiding at the same time the details of the relevant implementation.
To showcase the feasibility of this approach, we have implemented an IBN framework that provides coordination, and optimization of a 6G infrastructure integrating multiple individual autonomous domains. The relevant implementation has been deployed over a multi-domain 5G test-bed comprising 5G Radio Access Network (RAN) integrated with optical transport and core networks, hosted at the Physics Department of the NKUA (figure 1). The developed IBN framework allowed to manage each domain through intent-driven control loops and enabled demonstration of autonomously optimized 6G services satisfying a set of agreed specifications [1].
