Dynamic Network Slicing Orchestration in Open 5G Networks using Multi-Criteria Decision Making and Secure Federated Learning Techniques

Abstract

Network slicing enables new revenue opportunities for service providers by allowing them to offer customized network services tailored to various industry verticals and use cases. 5G network uses slicing technology to enable the creation of tailored network slices to support diverse use cases, such as enhanced mobile broadband (eMBB), massive machine-type communications (mMTC), and ultra-reliable low-latency communications (URLLC). However, the complexity of network slicing also introduces challenges, such as maintaining service-level agreements (SLAs), quality of service (QoS), security across multiple slices, and service provisioning and dynamic allocation of resources. This paper develops a novel Federated Network Slicing Orchestrator (FNSO) that uses the Multi-Criteria Decision Making (MCDM) method to rank and select the proper telecommunication service provider that runs at certain edge Points of Presence (EPoP) of the 5G-based IOT network for slice deployment. The proposed FNSO integrates the Hexagonal Fuzzy approach with the Technique for Order Preference by Similarity to Ideal Solution (TOPSIS) to address the shortcoming of the TOPSIS and to rank and select the proper EPoP that can host the network slice using numeric and fuzzy Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) such as the security, cost, and performance criteria. Furthermore, we augment the FNSO with a Secure Federated Learning (SFL) model to protect the local 5G domain service provisioning KPIs and secure the FNSO against potential attacks. The experiment results depict that the average slice acceptance ratio of the FNSO is higher than the current solutions such as GRU-DNN, VIKOR-CNSP, and T-S3RA by 28.2%, 10.13%, and 6.1%. Furthermore, On average, the SFL model is faster than the DeTrust-FL, HybridAlpha-FL, PHE-FL, and HybridOne-FL by 7.11%, 7.21%, 15.73%, and 20.61% respectively, and slower than Classic-FL, on average, by 4.37% due to the secure aggregation that the SFL offers.