Mobile Cloud Networking: future communication architecture for mobile cloud

Abstract

Commoditization and virtualization of wireless networks are changing the economics of mobile networks to help network providers, e.g. Mobile Network Operators (MNOs), Mobile Virtual Network Operator (MVNO), move from proprietary and bespoke hardware and software platforms to an open, cost-efficient and flexible cellular ecosystem. In addition, rich and innovation local services can be efficiently materialized through cloudification by leveraging the existing infrastructure. The future communication architecture for mobile cloud services - Mobile Cloud Networking (MCN) is a EU FP7 large-scale integrating project (IP) funded by the European Commission that is focusing on how cloud computing and network function virtualization concepts are applied to achieve virtualization of cellular networks. It aims at the development of a fully cloud-based mobile communication and application platform, or more specifically, it aims to investigate, implement and evaluate the technological foundations for the mobile communication system of long-term evolution (LTE), based on mobile network with decentralized computing and smart storage offered as one atomic service: on-demand, elastic and pay-as-you-go. MCN will investigate, implement and evaluate the technological foundations for that system to meet real-time performance and support efficient and elastic use and sharing of radio access and mobile core network resources between operators. Mobile network functionalities-such as baseband unit processing, mobility management and quality of service (QoS) control-will run on the enhanced mobile cloud platform leveraging commodity hardware, which requires extensions toward higher decentralization and enhancing them to elastically scale up and down based on load. The end-to-end control and management orchestrates infrastructure and services across several technological domains: wireless, mobile core and data centres, providing guaranteed multiple end-to-end service, mobility through the Follow-Me Cloud concept. In this chapter, we present three enabling components of such a future MCN architecture: Radio Access Network as a Service (RANaaS), Information-Centric Networking as a Service (ICNaaS) and Mobility Prediction as a Service (MOBaaS).