5G Network Slicing with QKD and Quantum-Safe Security
Abstract
We demonstrate how the 5G network slicing model can be extended to address data security requirements. In this work we demonstrate two different slice configurations, with different encryption requirements, representing two diverse use-cases for 5G networking: namely, an enterprise application hosted at a metro network site, and a content delivery network. We create a modified software-defined networking (SDN) orchestrator which calculates and provisions network slices according to the requirements, including encryption backed by quantum key distribution (QKD), or other methods. Slices are automatically provisioned by SDN orchestration of network resources, allowing selection of encrypted links as appropriate, including those which use standard Diffie-Hellman key exchange, QKD and quantum-resistant algorithms (QRAs), as well as no encryption at all. We show that the set-up and tear-down times of the network slices takes of the order of 1-2 minutes, which is an order of magnitude improvement over manually provisioning a link today.
Keywords
Cite
@article{arxiv.2007.03377,
title = {5G Network Slicing with QKD and Quantum-Safe Security},
author = {Paul Wright and Catherine White and Ryan C. Parker and Jean-Sébastien Pegon and Marco Menchetti and Joseph Pearse and Arash Bahrami and Anastasia Moroz and Adrian Wonfor and Richard V. Penty and Timothy P. Spiller and Andrew Lord},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2007.03377},
year = {2021}
}
Comments
9 pages, 7 figures