US Patent 10411964 Method and apparatus for network slicing

Aspects of the disclosure provide architectures, methods and systems that will allow reconfigurability of the network to suit the needs of various parties. Accordingly, some embodiments provide a controllable open operation environment. In such an environment, there can be a decoupling of various network aspects which would be conventionally be under the span of control of a service provider, allowing for each aspect to be provided by a different entity. For example, infrastructure can be provided separately from the provider of network services to subscribers and/or from the provider of slices and/or from the provider of NOS services. For example an infrastructure provider can provide infrastructure used by a slice provider to provide network slices to virtual network providers which provide services to end customers. Generally speaking, SONAC-Com is responsible for the composition of slices and manages resources at the slice level. SONAC-Op is responsible for the operation of slices. For example, SONAC-Com develops slices using the general infrastructure resource pools, while SONAC-Op manages the delivery of slice traffic packets over deployed slices.