Efficient caching resource allocation for network slicing in 5G core network

Abstract

Network slicing has been considered as one of the key technologies in the next generation mobile network (fifth generation – 5G), which can create virtual network and provide customised services on demand. Most of the current work on network slicing mainly focuses on virtualisation technology, especially in virtual resource allocation. However, caching as a significant approach to improve the content delivery and quality of experience for end-users has not been well considered in network slicing. In this study, the authors consider in-network caching combining with network slicing, and propose an efficient caching resource allocation scheme for network slicing in 5G core network. They first formulate the caching resource allocation issue as an integer linear programming model, and then propose a caching resource allocation scheme based on chemical reaction optimisation (CRO) algorithm, which can significantly improve the caching resource utilisation. The CRO algorithm is a population-based optimisation metaheuristic, which has advantages in searching optimal solution and computation complexity. Finally, extensive simulation results are presented to illustrate the performance of the proposed scheme.