A Monitoring Aware Strategy for 5G Core Slice Embedding

We address the question of how to deploy a monitored 5G Core network slice using virtual probes. We propose vProbe and vPacket-Broker (vPB) deployment schemes within the slice to meet the monitoring need of a network operator and to have full network visibility. The physical probes and packet brokers capture and monitor the traffic in the slices. In 5G and especially the 5G Core (5GC) network, network functions will be virtualized/containerized (VNFs/CNFs) and automatically provisioned in the 5GC slice. In this context, the deployment of vProbes and vPacket Brokers, should be also automated and simultaneously considered in 5GC slices instantiations and deployments. To realize this automated deployment, one of the challenges is how to capture the traffic between two given VNFs or CNFs without impacting network performance. We answer this question by describing potential architectures that fit such a virtual infrastructure and adapt and propose two embedding algorithms to optimize and automate the instantiation of a 5GC slice. Three different metrics are used to evaluate performance and compare with other existing schemes.