Abstract

This article proposes a novel method and system to solve the issue of the management and orchestration (MANO) of end-to-end network services when the MANO system is deployed in a mobile infrastructure which is within the user domain. Such a MANO system, referred to as u-MANO, raises several challenges and issues in terms of ensuring the integrity and service continuity provided by the end-to-end network services. These challenges become even more complex when the end-to-end network services are deployed in collaboration with third-party MANO providers (p-MANOs). Hence, this article addresses these challenges by proposing a new framework and methods that achieve seamless coordination between the u-MANO and p-MA-NO systems. Moreover, the feasibility of the proposed solution and its introduced gains in terms of reducing the communication overhead and the energy consumption of user domain infrastructure are evaluated in scenarios of using unmanned aerial vehicles for providing network services.