| CPC H04W 16/02 (2013.01) [H04B 10/11 (2013.01); H04W 16/14 (2013.01)] | 20 Claims |
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1. A computer-implemented method for slicing a wide area network (WAN) that operates as at least a portion of a transport network of a 5G (fifth generation) network, the method comprising:
supporting utilization of a plurality of WAN slices, each WAN slice being implemented to transport data traffic over commonly-shared optical fiber systems of the transport network according to on-demand requests for network capacity, in which the plurality of WAN slices are mappable to one or more pre-defined service-based slice types described by International Telecommunication Union Radiocommunication Sector (ITU-R) recommendation M.2083-0;
implementing a WAN slice controller that is operatively coupled to physical infrastructure underlying the transport network of the 5G network, the infrastructure comprising one or more wavelength division multiplexed (WDM) optical transport systems that traverse nodes of the WAN;
selecting nodes on a WAN slice path including an entry node, a destination node, and zero or more intermediate nodes between the entry node and the destination node;
using the WAN slice controller for dynamically carving out optical spectrum on the WAN for contiguous utilization across each of the nodes on the WAN slice path according to the on-demand requests; and
provisioning the nodes of the WAN slice path to utilize the carved out optical spectrum for network traffic on the 5G network to instantiate a WAN slice extending from the entry node to the destination node, wherein the carved out spectrum is dedicated to the instantiated WAN slice.
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