Adaptive Methods for Revenue Model learning of a Slice Broker in the Presence of Adversaries

Abstract In the Fifth Generation (5G) of mobile networks, Multi-Access Edge Computing (MEC) refers to the deployment of computing resources closer to the end-users for improved service delivery. In the context of 5G MEC, the slice broker plays a crucial role in managing the allocation of resources among the different network slices, which are logical networks on top of a shared infrastructure. The slice broker is a business entity that acts as an intermediary between the slice tenants and the infrastructure provider and is responsible for allocating resources (such as CPU, memory, and network bandwidth) required to set up the network. The slice broker must ensure that resources are allocated in a way that the revenue is maximized. In a dynamic environment, the slice broker must learn the revenue model adaptively and online. Adversaries can significantly reduce the revenue by misleading the system about the resources pretending to be selfish nodes or creating noise. The slice broker should learn the revenue model in the presence of adversaries. We apply cooperative deep reinforcement learning with consensus mechanism and consensus deep learning to learn the revenue model adaptively. We also compare our proposed methods with the reference solution. Simulation results show that our proposed methods, especially the cooperative version, outperform the reference solution.