Small-Scale 5G Testbeds for Network Slicing Deployment: A Systematic Review

TL;DR

This paper systematically reviews small-scale 5G testbeds for network slicing, comparing their design, technologies, and software, highlighting the most effective solutions and discussing future challenges and directions.

Contribution

It provides a comprehensive comparison of existing cost-effective 5G network slicing testbeds, including their design criteria, technologies, and software packages, to guide future developments.

Findings

Some testbeds outperform others in design and technology

Certain software packages best satisfy the ETSI NFV MANO framework

The review identifies key challenges and potential solutions for future testbeds

Abstract

Developing specialized cloud-based and open-source testbeds is a practical approach to investigate network slicing functionalities in the fifth-generation (5G) mobile networks. This paper provides a comprehensive review of most of the existing cost-efficient and small-scale testbeds that partially or fully deploy network slicing. First, we present relevant software packages for the three main functional blocks of the ETSI NFV MANO framework and for emulating the access and core network domains. Second, we define primary and secondary design criteria for deploying network slicing testbeds. These design criteria are later used for comparison between the testbeds. Third, we present the state-of-the-art testbeds, including their design objectives, key technologies, network slicing deployment, and experiments. Next, we evaluate the testbeds according to the defined design criteria and present an in-depth summary table. This assessment concludes with the superiority of some of them over the rest and the most dominant software packages satisfying the ETSI NFV MANO framework. Finally, challenges, potential solutions, and future works of network slicing testbeds are discussed.