Application management of network slices with ledgers

Abstract

The technologies described herein are generally directed to facilitating the allocation, scheduling, and management of network slice resources. According to an embodiment, a system can comprise a processor and a memory that can store executable instructions that, when executed by the processor, facilitate performance of operations. The operations can include receiving proposed contract data representative of a proposed contract for access by an application of a user equipment device to resources of a network slice usable for the access by the application. The operations can further include, based on the proposed contract data, storing governing contract data representative of a governing contract in a storage device, with the governing contract being selected to control the access by the application to the resources of the network slice. The operations can further include scheduling use of the resources of the network slice by the application based on the governing contract data.

What is claimed is: 
     
         1 . A method, comprising:
 based on governing contract data of a governing contract identified to control access by a first user equipment of a group of user equipment to resources of a network slice, facilitating, by network equipment comprising a processor, use of the resources of the network slice by the first user equipment, wherein the first user equipment was assigned a priority attribute relative to second user equipment of the group of user equipment other than the first user equipment;   detecting, by the network equipment, a condition of the access that is not encompassed by the governing contract, resulting in a detected condition; and   based on the detected condition and the priority attribute, altering the governing contract to encompass the detected condition.   
     
     
         2 . The method of  claim 1 , further comprising storing, by the network equipment, the governing contract data in a blockchain ledger comprising appending an information block corresponding to the governing contract data to the blockchain ledger. 
     
     
         3 . The method of  claim 2 , wherein the appending of the information block comprises communicating a request to blockchain equipment to generate the information block based on previous blocks in the blockchain ledger stored prior to the information block. 
     
     
         4 . The method of  claim 1 , further comprising facilitating, by the network equipment, receiving a location of the first user equipment, wherein altering the governing contract is further based on the location. 
     
     
         5 . The method of  claim 4 , further comprising, based on the location being within a threshold distance to an incident scene, increasing, by the network equipment, a priority of the priority attribute resulting in an increased priority, wherein altering the governing contract is further based on the increased priority. 
     
     
         6 . The method of  claim 5 , further comprising:
 estimating, by the network equipment, a completion time of alterations of the altering of the governing contract that are predicted to be usable by the first user equipment at the incident scene; and   based on a speed of the first user equipment, selecting, by the network equipment, the threshold distance to enable the alterations of the the governing contract to be completed by an arrival time of the first user equipment at the incident scene.   
     
     
         7 . The method of  claim 1 , further comprising, facilitating, by the network equipment, communicating an instruction to the first user equipment to control the access to the resources of the network slice according to terms of the governing contract. 
     
     
         8 . The method of  claim 1 , wherein detecting the condition of the access comprises detecting an anomaly in the access to the resources of the network slice by the first user equipment, resulting in a detected anomaly. 
     
     
         9 . The method of  claim 8 , wherein detecting the anomaly comprises detecting the anomaly based on a criterion obtained from an anomaly criteria data store. 
     
     
         10 . The method of  claim 8 , further comprising, training, by the network equipment, an artificial neural network based on monitored network activity, and wherein detecting the anomaly comprises employing the artificial neural network to perform the detecting of the anomaly. 
     
     
         11 . The method of  claim 8 , wherein the detected anomaly comprises a request by the first user equipment to exceed an amount of allocated resources of the resources of the network slice allocated for use by the first user equipment, and wherein altering the governing contract to encompass the detected anomaly comprises altering the governing contract to increase the amount of the allocated resources of the resources of the network slice allocated for use by the first user equipment. 
     
     
         12 . A user equipment, comprising:
 a processor; and   a memory that stores executable instructions that, when executed by the processor, facilitate performance of operations, comprising:
 utilizing resources of a network slice, wherein utilizing the resources is controlled by controlling agreement data representative of a controlling agreement applicable to the user equipment that was generated by network equipment based a priority value assigned to the user equipment; and 
 receiving, from the network equipment:
 a first indication that the priority value has been altered based on an incident location with which the user equipment has been associated, and 
 a second indication that the controlling agreement has been altered to provide additional resources to the network slice to be available to the user equipment, wherein the controlling agreement was altered based on the priority value. 
 
   
     
     
         13 . The user equipment of  claim 12 , wherein the operations further comprise receiving the controlling agreement data from network storage equipment comprising blockchain information corresponding to a blockchain ledger, and wherein the controlling agreement data comprises agreement information corresponding to an information block that was appended to the blockchain ledger. 
     
     
         14 . The user equipment of  claim 13 , wherein the operations further comprise, validating the controlling agreement data by analyzing the information block in the blockchain ledger and previously linked information blocks in the blockchain ledger. 
     
     
         15 . The user equipment of  claim 13 , wherein the operations further comprise, validating the controlling agreement data by receiving an indication from blockchain node equipment, and wherein the indication is based on an analysis, by the blockchain node equipment, of the information block and the previously linked information blocks. 
     
     
         16 . The user equipment of  claim 12 , wherein the operations further comprise:
 determining location data representative of a geographic location of the user equipment; and   communicating the location data to the network equipment, wherein the controlling agreement was altered further based on the geographic location.   
     
     
         17 . A non-transitory machine-readable medium, comprising executable instructions that, when executed by a processor of slice controller equipment, facilitate performance of operations, comprising:
 based on guidelines identified to control access by network equipment to resources of a virtual network slice, enabling use of the resources of the virtual network slice by the network equipment;   detecting a condition of the access that is not encompassed by the guidelines, resulting in a detected condition; and   based on the detected condition and a priority value assigned to the network equipment relative to other network equipment of a group of network equipment other than the network equipment, altering the guidelines to include the detected condition.   
     
     
         18 . The non-transitory machine-readable medium of  claim 17 , wherein the network equipment comprises a user equipment. 
     
     
         19 . The non-transitory machine-readable medium of  claim 17 , wherein the operations further comprise receiving the guidelines from network storage equipment comprising blockchain information corresponding to a blockchain ledger, and wherein the guidelines comprise agreement information corresponding to an information block that was appended to the blockchain ledger. 
     
     
         20 . The non-transitory machine-readable medium of  claim 17 , wherein the operations further comprise receiving distance data representative of a distance of the network equipment from an incident location of an incident assigned to the network equipment, and wherein altering the guidelines is further based on the distance.