Autonomous Private Mobile Networks: State of the Art and Future Challenges

As mobile systems for private use are gaining momentum, the area of network management automation is bound to attract renewed attention from standardization organizations and vendors. Prominent examples of tasks that would benefit from network automation tools are provisioning, diagnosing, and healing. Nevertheless, due to the various network and service providers as well as stakeholders involved in the deployment of a non-public mobile system, the success of such automation heavily depends on a smooth and effective interoperability among the components of the overall system. In this article, we review the state of the art of network operations, administration, and management in the context of mobile systems for non-public use, highlighting the differences with respect to traditional public networks. Then, we provide insights about the automated provisioning of an entire core network and a network slice subnet, both for private use, performed on a research testbed under continuous integration. Lastly, we propose a list of future challenges in this research area.