Scenarios related to 5G and beyond give rise to a high degree of heterogeneity in terms of applications, services, and user expectations as well as more demanding QoS requirements with an end-to-end scope that can cover multiple operator domains. In this work, we design an inter-domain component that addresses the control plane challenges of establishing such end-to-end connectivity in a scalable, efficient, and automated way. Furthermore, we provide insights into operational aspects by investigating to which extent different traffic aggregation mechanisms can be used to benefit from economies of scale while meeting QoS constraints.

This paper contains an original classification of the 5G wholesale services and a novel proposal for the respective pricing schemes for these services. Motivated by the envisioned 5G customer services, this paper introduces the services that need to be offered, orchestrated and traded among infrastructure and service providers, so that end-to-end 5G services can be efficiently orchestrated and provisioned. The paper proposes and assesses candidate pricing schemes for these services.

Heterogeneity of current software solutions for 5G is heading for complex and costly situations, with high fragmentation, which in turn creates uncertainty and the risk of delaying 5G innovations. This context motivated the definition of a novel Operating Platform for 5G (5G-OP), a unifying reference functional framework supporting end-to-end and multi-layer orchestration. 5G-OP aims at integrated management, control and orchestration of computing, storage, memory, networking core and edge resources up to the end-user devices and terminals (e.g., robots and smart vehicles). 5G-OP is an overarching architecture, with agnostic interfaces and well-defined abstractions, offering the seamless integration of current and future infrastructure control and orchestration solutions (e.g., OpenDaylight, ONOS, OpenStack, Apache Mesos, OpenSource MANO, Docker, LXC, etc.) The paper provides also the description of a prototype that can be seen as a simplified version of a 5G-OP, whose feasibility has been demonstrated in Focus Group IMT2020 of ITU-T.

Mobile broadband (MBB) networks underpin numerous vital operations of the society and are arguably becoming the most important piece of the communications infrastructure. In this demo paper, our goal is to showcase the potential of a novel multi-homed MBB platform for measuring, monitoring and assessing the performance of MBB services in an objective manner. Our platform, MONROE, is composed of hundreds of nodes scattered over four European countries and a backend system that collects the measurement results. Through a user-friendly web client, the experimenters can schedule and deploy their experiments. The platform further embeds traffic analysis tools for real-time traffic flow analysis and a powerful visualization tool.

Generalized multi-protocol label switching (GMPLS) is an important enabling technology for the "All-IP" vision, but raises new challenges in multilayer network operations. The main goal of this paper is to investigate the policy-based management (PBM) approach applied to GMPLS network functionality, covering both packet switching and circuit switching technologies. We propose PBM mechanisms and policies to facilitate and improve the collaboration between the management plane and the GMPLS control plane, for the purpose of efficient GMPLS TE and service provisioning. We point out guidelines for policy information modeling, and we propose to extend the PCIM/e with policy event, to explicitly model the triggering of policy rules. This will increase automation and operational efficiency. We also recommend that the relationships between policy and management information and related support information must be explicitly captured and represented in a coherent modeling approach. The topic of GMPLS TE and service provisioning should be put on the IETF agenda.