International Conference on Future and Intelligent Networking (FINE 2026)

Aug 26-28, 2026 · Osaka, Japan.

http://www.ieee-fine.org/2026/

Track 3: Network Softwarization and Programmable Infrastructure

Track Chairs:
Dimitrios Pezaros, University of Glasgow, U.K. dimitrios.pezaros@glasgow.ac.uk
Ricard Vilalta, CTTC, Spain ricard.vilalta@cttc.es

Description

Networks will have to ever increasing traffic volumes and stringent application requirements to deliver future services in the coming decades. They will hence need to provide more predictable and reliable services end-to-end on top of future and advanced connectivity technologies. This track considers the core networking technologies of the future that will facilitate such end-to-end advanced and flexible services deployment, and will explore the necessary advancements needed to enable the global network infrastructure to deliver services at scale, observing stringent performance and resilience requirements, and make an infrastructure’s capability accessible to applications and services across a converged end-to-end communications-compute continuum.

A core component for realising this vision is flexibility and openness of the infrastructure enabled by softwarisation, programmability, slicing, and service orchestration within and across network domains. Also, integration and convergence with advanced compute capability across Cloud, Edge, industrial, and non-terrestrial networks.

We will explore the advancements needed at different levels of the network architecture, from switching hardware over softwarizing networks up to resource management aspects like slicing in a flexible and programmatic way, to enable future networks to be more responsive and adaptable to the ever increasing requirements of diverse workloads.

We also aim to encompass research and development on different aspects, like control, management, governance or policing of networks, to pricing and policy aspects.

Track Topics

• Edge Cloud continuum and Telco Edge Cloud
• Network Function Virtualization (NFV)
• Service Orchestration
• Software-Defined Networking (SDN)
• Network dataplane programmability
• Network slicing
• Cloud-native network functions
• Service-oriented networking
• Data Center Networks
• Edge and Fog Networking
• High Performance Networking for AI/ML
• Disaggregated Infrastructure such as Open RAN (ORAN)
• Intelligent /Reconfigurable Network Infrastructure
• Security and Resilience in Infrastructure Networks
• Programmable and In-Network Computing
• Network Misconfiguration Diagnosis
• Green Networking / Sustainable Network Infrastructure
• Planning, Provisioning, Deployment, Operation, and Management of Network Infrastructure

Paper Submission and Publication

Details of paper submission and publication can be found here.