Dependability Integration in Cloud-hosted Telecommunication Services

Abstract

Future networks should be based on Telco clouds to handle the growing traffic. Thanks to Telco Clouds, network functions can be deployed, accessed and run like any information technology application hosted in cloud computing. However, network functions need to fulfill carrier grade characteristics consisting of strict requirements in dependability (e.g., five nines availability, some milliseconds of outage). In traditional telecommunication networks, these features are guaranteed by proprietary hardware that hosts network functions. In Telco cloud context, there is an emergency need to adapt cloud environments in order to guarantee carrier-class behaviour. The aim of this paper is to guarantee dependability in the telecommunication services hosted in cloud environments according to the rates fixed by ETSI for three service availability levels. In this regard, we propose the Dependability Broker Architecture in Telco Clouds; which is a broker architecture based on a Software Defined Network controller that operates on Network Function Virtualization environments. DBA-Telco takes into consideration the different availability levels defined for telecommunication services. It also dimensions the bottlenecks of the virtualized mobile core EPC-IMS based on the expectations of 5G networks. This architecture achieves the carrier grade requirements in the virtualized mobile core network EPC-IMS.