Organic 6G networks: Graceful handling of infrastructure flexibility

This article proposes a new service architecture for 6G core networks enabling a graceful runtime adaptation of the communication to the flexible infrastructures. Through reconsidering the 5G Service Based Architecture (SBA) functional split, we propose the Organic 6G Network concept. It provides a new perspective on how to dynamically deploy and adapt a software-based network during runtime, in order to simplify the functionality placement on top of a flexible infrastructure. Specifically, this article concentrates on using the new infrastructure topology changes such as mobile and nomadic nodes, as well as the potential of deploying functionality on third party infrastructure nodes, beyond the network's administrative limits. A thorough analysis of the new infrastructure flexibility and its requirements is presented, followed by the description of the Organic 6G Network architecture concept with a description and assessment of how gracefully it can adapt to flexible infrastructures. A comparison with the current 5G network provides an overview of the proposed advancements, showing how the Organic 6G network architecture is a very promising alternative for reaching the 6G's expected level of flexibility.