End-To-End Slicing and Devising a Scheduler for a 5G C-RAN Using PROMETHEE Method

This paper contributes a solution to the problem of end-to-end slicing in a 5G cloud radio access network (C-RAN) in the presence of three types of traffic, i.e., enhanced mobile broadband (eMBB), massive machine-type communications (mMTC), and Ultra-reliable low-latency communications (URLLC). The objective is to devise a scheduler to maximize the service admission while considering service prioritization in allocating the slice. This work proposes the use of a decision-making method known as Preference Ranking Organisation METHod for Enrichment Evaluations (PROMETHEE) based on the analytic hierarchy process (AHP) to achieve the objective. The end-to-end network topology based on CalREN (California network) is considered and service arrival is assumed to be Poisson. The arrivals are scheduled using the PROMETHEE based on the AHP method and then considered for slicing. The network slicing finds the possible paths based on requirements versus network constraints and determines the best route using PROMETHEE based on the AHP method in combination with minimum latency or minimum hop path policy. The results obtained in terms of admission probability, admission ratio, and mean link utilization are in line with the objective and point out the possibility of using the proposed method to deal with the end-to-end network slicing problem in C-RAN.