Costa-Pérez, XavierGarcía-Saavedra, AndrésLi, XiDeiss, ThomasOliva Delgado, Antonio de laDi Giglio, AndreaIovanna, PaolaMourad, Alain2017-11-162017-11-162017-02-28IEEE wireless communications, 24(1), pp. 38-451536-1284https://hdl.handle.net/10016/25856This article proposes an innovative architecture design for a 5G transport solution (dubbed 5G-Crosshaul) targeting the integration of existing and new fronthaul and backhaul technologies and interfaces. At the heart of the proposed design lie an SDN/NFV-based management and orchestration entity (XCI), and an Ethernet-based packet forwarding entity (XFE) supporting various fronthaul and backhaul traffic QoS profiles. The XCI lever-ages widespread architectural frameworks for NFV (ETSI NFV) and SDN (Open Daylight and ONOS). It opens the 5G transport network as a service for innovative network applications on top (e.g., multi-tenancy, resource management), provisioning the required network and IT resources in a flexible, cost-effective, and abstract manner. The proposed design supports the concept of network slicing pushed by the industry for realizing a truly flexible, sharable, and cost-effective future 5G system.8application/pdfeng© 2017 IEEE5G transport networkSDN NFV integrated fronthaul-backhaul transport network architecture5G-crosshaulXCIEthernet-based packet forwarding entityXFEQoS profilesresearch articleTelecomunicacioneshttps://doi.org/10.1109/MWC.2017.1600181WCopen access38145IEEE wireless communications24AR/0000019594