Network Slicing Based 5G and Future Mobile Networks: Mobility, Resource Management, and Challenges

The fifth-generation (5G) networks are expected to be able to satisfy users' different quality-of-service (QoS) requirements. Network slicing is a promising technology for 5G networks to provide services tailored for users' specific QoS demands. Driven by the increased massive wireless data traffic from different application scenarios, efficient resource allocation schemes should be exploited to improve the flexibility of network resource allocation and capacity of 5G networks based on network slicing. Due to the diversity of 5G application scenarios, new mobility management schemes are greatly needed to guarantee seamless handover in network slicing based 5G systems. In this article, we introduce a logical architecture for network slicing based 5G systems, and present a scheme for managing mobility between different access networks, as well as a joint power and subchannel allocation scheme in spectrum-sharing two-tier systems based on network slicing, where both the co-tier interference and cross-tier interference are taken into account. Simulation results demonstrate that the proposed resource allocation scheme can flexibly allocate network resources between different slices in 5G systems. Finally, several open issues and challenges in network slicing based 5G networks are discussed, including network reconstruction, network slicing management and cooperation with other 5G technologies.