Addressing the Scalability of Network Digital Twins: A Network Sampling Approach

The presentation, delivered at the 20th International Conference on Network and Service Management (CNSM), Prague, Czech Republic (28 - 31 October 2024), addresses the scalability challenge associated with implementing a Network Digital Twin (NDT) for emerging mobile communication networks such as 5G and 6G. These networks support a new generation of applications, including immersive services, vehicle-to-everything (V2X) communication, and smart manufacturing. However, the mobile communication ecosystem operates in a highly dynamic environment, characterized by frequent topology changes and unpredictable patterns of network resource consumption. Consequently, ensuring frequent synchronization between the NDT and the physical network introduces significant scalability constraints, particularly in large-scale and complex scenarios involving numerous network entities, highly dynamic topologies, and substantial data volumes per node or link. To address this issue, the presentation introduces a network sampling concept combined with a structured representation of network information and hierarchical zoom-in/zoom-out operations, aiming to enhance the scalability and efficiency of NDT adoption in next-generation mobile communication networks.

The presentation included insights from the EvoRoads Horizon Europe project (Grant agreement ID: 101147850).

Conference official website: [click here]
Speaker: Mounir Kellil from CEA.