Sdn Orchestrator: A Unified Approach For Abstracting Sdn Applications Ecosystem

It is expected that in the context of 5G networks service provisioning will be benefiting from cloud and software defined architectures the granularity of which will be giving room to ad-hoc (re)configuration of resources for more accurate customization of either well known or on the fly defined services tailored to the varied needs of end users. With self-organizing and autonomic principles being relevant for timely and accurate service provisioning, 5G infrastructure management is expected to be subject to the automated configuration of network resources. With the introduction of Software Defined Networking an entire control application ecosystem can evolve on the basis of features, such as agility, programmability and openness. This paper tries, therefore, to define the basic characteristics of an SDN Orchestrator (SDNO) that allows the lifecycle management of SDN Applications to be utilized for the support of Operation Support Service (OSS) workflows.