# Emerging Trends in Hybrid Wireless Communication and Data Management for the Industry 4.0
## 6 RAN Slicing for 5G Industrial Wireless Networks
Within each of these phases, high-level tasks are also defined in [44]. The tasks included in each phase are next described. In addition, Figure 8 shows how the proposed hybrid management architecture can efficiently support the management of the slices (Figure 8 does not show end-devices since RAN slice management functions are in charge of the Orchestrator and the Local Managers). * Preparation: The preparation phase includes the evaluation of the RAN slice requirements, design and definition of the attributes of the new RAN slice, and on-boarding. In this phase, the network environment is also prepared. The tasks related to the preparation phase are in charge of the Orchestrator, which has global knowledge of the network. Thanks to the information collected from the different (physical/virtual) cells, the Orchestrator can evaluate the necessity of new slices to guarantee the requirements of the system/network, as well as the capacity of a new RAN slice to meet the communication requirements demanded based on the availability of resources. * Commissioning: This phase includes the creation of the slice. This task is also performed by the Orchestrator. The Orchestrator allocates the needed resources to the new slice or virtual cell and configures them to accomplish the new slice requirements. The Orchestrator also creates the Local Manager in charge of the new virtual cell. In this case, the Orchestrator also configures the local management functions (for example, the scheduling or power control schemes) to be executed by the Local Manager to satisfy the requirements in terms of latency, reliability, and bandwidth, among others, of the application(s) or service(s) supported by the new slice or virtual cell. * Operation: The operation phase includes the activation, supervision, performance reporting, modification, and deactivation of a slice. The management tasks of this phase are distributed within the Orchestrator and the Local Managers of each slice or virtual cell. The main decisions about the activation or deactivation of a RAN slice or virtual cell is in charge of the Orchestrator. However, once the activation/deactivation order from the Orchestrator at the Local Manager has been received, some tasks aimed at configuring or activating/deactivating communication services at the cell level could be performed by the Local Manager. During the operation phase, the Orchestrator is also in charge of monitoring and supervising the resource usage and if the established slice requirements are met. To this end, the Local Manager is in charge of reporting information about the performance experienced in the slice or virtual cell. Based on the supervision outcome, the Orchestrator can order modification of the slice or virtual cell. In this case, some modification actions can be performed by the Local Manager in order to change some configuration parameters or functions based on the modification instructions received from the Orchestrator. In addition, slice modification can also be due to receiving new network slice requirements. * Decommissioning: This phase is executed in the Orchestrator. The Orchestrator is in charge of terminating a slice or virtual cell when it is no longer required. When a slice is terminated, it does no longer exists. With respect to data management, the data distribution functions operate on top of the virtual networks generated by RAN Slicing, and the requirements posed by data management determine part of the network traffic patterns. Therefore, RAN Slicing defined by the Orchestrator might consider the traffic patterns resulting from data management operations, in order to optimize slicing itself. The interplay between RAN Slicing and decentralized data distribution (contrary to cloud-based centralized middleware for data management) enables the convenience of managing data among different slices locally, and, when needed, exploiting an additional level of infrastructure-based computation and data management (i.e., fixed edge devices, portable user devices and remote clouds).