Converged Service-based Architecture for Next-Generation Mobile Communication Networks
Keliang Du, Luhan Wang, Zishen Zhu, Yunan Yan, Xiangming Wen
Abstract
Software Defined Network (SDN) and Network Function Virtualization (NFV) technologies have driven mobile communication networks to evolve toward a Service-Based Architecture (SBA) with great flexibility to meet the highly-dynamic requirements of vertical applications. The SBA has been applied into 5 <sup xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">th</sup> Generation (5G) core network and is evolving toward service-based end-to-end networks including virtualized Radio Access Networks (vRANs). This paper proposes a converged SBA (cSBA) to decouple access, control, and data planes. Specifically, the access plane with Distributed Units (DUs) functionalities is responsible for accessing User Equipments (UEs); the control plane consists of newly-defined converged services by integrating functionalities of Central Unit Control Planes (CU-CPs) and 5G core network for signaling processing; the data plane comprises Central Unit User Planes (CP-UPs) and User Plane Functions (UPFs), which are responsible for service data transmission. Optional converged services definition, service-based interface implementation, and cognitive service framework are proposed to enable an efficient cSBA. Finally, we evaluate the performance of the cSBA against the monolithic architecture.