Network slicing is one of the major catalysts to turn future telecommunication networks into versatile service platforms. Along with its benefits, network slicing is introducing new challenges in the development of sustainable network operations. In fact, guaranteeing slices requirements comes at the cost of additional energy consumption, in comparison to non-sliced networks. Yet, one of the main goals of operators is to offer the diverse 5G and beyond services, while ensuring energy efficiency. To this end, we study the problem of slice activation/deactivation, with the objective of minimizing energy consumption and maximizing the users quality of service (QoS). To solve the problem, we rely on two Multi-Armed Bandit (MAB) agents to derive decisions at individual base stations. Our evaluations are conducted using a real-world traffic dataset collected over an operational network in a medium size French city. Numerical results reveal that our proposed solutions provide approximately 11-14\% energy efficiency improvement compared to a configuration where all the slice instances are active, while maintaining the same level of QoS. Moreover, our work explicitly shows the impact of prioritizing the energy over QoS, and vice versa.

翻译：网络切片是推动未来电信网络向多功能服务平台转型的主要催化剂之一。然而，网络切片在带来优势的同时，也对可持续网络运营的发展提出了新挑战。事实上，与非切片网络相比，保障切片的业务需求会以增加额外能耗为代价。而运营商的核心目标之一是在实现能效优化的同时，提供多样化的5G及未来网络服务。为此，我们研究切片激活/停用问题，旨在最小化能耗并最大化用户服务质量（QoS）。我们采用两种多臂老虎机（MAB）智能体在单个基站层面进行决策求解。基于法国中型城市运营网络中采集的真实流量数据集开展评估，数值结果表明：与全切片实例激活的配置相比，所提方案在维持同等QoS水平的前提下，可实现约11%-14%的能效提升。此外，本工作明确揭示了将能效优先于QoS（或反之）所产生的具体影响。