Exploring Network Softwarization and Virtualization by Applying SDN/NFV to 5G and IoT (original) (raw)

NFV and SDN—Key Technology Enablers for 5G Networks

IEEE Journal on Selected Areas in Communications, 2017

Communication networks are undergoing their next evolutionary step towards 5G. The 5G networks are envisioned to provide a flexible, scalable, agile and programmable network platform over which different services with varying requirements can be deployed and managed within strict performance bounds. In order to address these challenges a paradigm shift is taking place in the technologies that drive the networks, and thus their architecture. Innovative concepts and techniques are being developed to power the next generation mobile networks. At the heart of this development lie Network Function Virtualization and Software Defined Networking technologies, which are now recognized as being two of the key technology enablers for realizing 5G networks, and which have introduced a major change in the way network services are deployed and operated. For interested readers that are new to the field of SDN and NFV this paper provides an overview of both these technologies with reference to the 5G networks. Most importantly it describes how the two technologies complement each other and how they are expected to drive the networks of near future.

Softwarization of Future Networks and Services -Programmable Enabled Networks as Next Generation Software Defined Networks

2013 IEEE SDN for Future Networks and Services (SDN4FNS), 2013

The Software Defined Networks (SDNs) and Network Functions Virtualisation (NFVs), as recent separate research and development trends have the roots in programmable / active network technologies and standards developed a decade ago. In particular, they are associated with the decoupling of forwarding from control and hardware from networking software, using open interfaces to connectivity resources. The next phase of R&D would involve novel integration and use of all connectivity, storage and processing resources under new management and control systems for provisioning of on-demand networking and services with continuous update of features. This brings into focus a relatively new and key topics for the next decade: what and how to create the conditions for effective and continuous updating and changing the networking functions without reinventing each time architectural aspects and related components (e.g. Softwarization of Future Networks and Services or Programmable Enabled Networks). This paper presents some of the key challenges in realising such programmable enabled networks.

Software Defined Networking towards 5G Network

International Journal of Computational and Electronic Aspects in Engineering, 2023

With increased importance of mobile networks and their expected ability to be usercentric puts strain on the current mobile networks. To tackle this, 5G networks will be used which offers user-oriented operation at effective costs with excellent infrastructure capabilities which can deal with heavy network traffic. Along with this, 5G networks will be useful in varied fields-from business use cases to medical ones. SDN technology has certain components which can be integrated with the 5G network following proper analysis and after realizing its proper applicability. The 5G network coupled with SDN will bring out some outstanding innovations in the network and its infrastructure. Leveraging SDN and NFV architecture as well as technology to build effective 5G networks is highlighted in this paper. SDN simplifies the network complexity because of its existing framework which suits the network framework in discussion. This paper summarizes the different approaches taken to achieve the above said aim. The primary focus remains using SDN for 5G networks and utilizing related technologies to get the best result.

Investigating Software-Defined Network and Networks-Function Virtualization for Emergent Network-oriented Services

A workgroup was created in the year 2013 to particularly explore on how SDN, or Software-Defined Network, could be practically implemented, taking into consideration not just technical, but also the social and economic impacts. The founding technologies required to support the possible implementation of SDN are yet evolving, which provides a huge scope to study the performance of these systems, to be deemed viable, practically. Networks-Function Virtualization, or NFV, and SDN, are expected to be the pillars of this emergent 5G Networks Technology, which would actually prove to be a stronger blend among Computer Networks, the Cloud and also IT provisioning services, with the aim of increasing performance, while reducing cost. This paper aims to provide an insight into these innovative concepts of SDN and NFV, which could surely revolutionize the way in which Networking and IT Services are being offered.

SDN and NFV integration in generalized mobile network architecture

2015 European Conference on Networks and Communications (EuCNC), 2015

The main drivers for the mobile core network evolution is to serve the future challenges and set the way to 5G networks with need for high capacity and low latency. Different technologies such as Network Functions Virtualization (NFV) and Software Defined Networking (SDN) are being considered to address the future needs of 5G networks. However, future applications such as Internet of Things (IoT), video services and others still unveiled will have different requirements, which emphasize the need for the dynamic scalability of the network functionality. The means for efficient network resource operability seems to be even more important than the future network element costs. This paper provides the analysis of different technologies such as SDN and NFV that offer different architectural options to address the needs of 5G networks. The options under consideration in this paper may differ mainly in the extent of what SDN principles are applied to mobile specific functions or to transport network functions only.

Wireless software-defined networks (W-SDNs) and network function virtualization (NFV) for 5G cellular systems: An overview and qualitative evaluation

Cellular network technologies have evolved to support the ever-increasing wireless data traffic, which results from the rapidly-evolving Internet and widely-adopted cloud applications over wireless networks. However, hardware-based designs, which rely on closed and inflexible architectures of current cellular systems, make a typical 10-year cycle for a new generation of wireless networks to be standardized and deployed. To overcome this limitation, the concept of software-defined networking (SDN) has been proposed to efficiently create centralized network abstraction with the provisioning of programmability over the entire network. Moreover, the complementary concept of network function virtualization (NFV) has been further proposed to effectively separate the abstraction of functionalities from the hardware by decoupling the data forwarding plane from the control plane. These two concepts provide cellular networks with the needed flexibility to evolve and adapt according to the ever-changing network context and introduce wireless software-defined networks (W-SDNs) for 5G cellular systems. Thus, there is an urgent need to study the fundamental architectural principles underlying a new generation of software-defined cellular network as well as the enabling technologies that supports and manages such emerging architecture. In this paper, first, the state-of-the-art W-SDNs solutions along with their associated NFV techniques are surveyed. Then, the key differences among these W-SDN solutions as well as their limitations are highlighted. To counter those limitations, SoftAir, a new SDN architecture for 5G cellular systems, is introduced. tural designs. Such inflexible hardware-based architectures typically lead to a 10-year cycle for a new generation of wireless networks to be standardized and deployed, impose significant challenges into adopting new wireless networking technologies to maximize the network capacity and coverage, and prevent the provision of truly-differentiated services able to adapt to increasingly growing, uneven, and highly variable traffic patterns. In particular, for 5G cellular system requirements, the ultra high capacity should have 1000-fold capacity/km 2 compared to LTE, the user-plane latency should be less than 1ms over the radio access network (RAN), and http://dx.

Advancing Software-Defined Networks: A Survey

IEEE Access

Having gained momentum from its promise of centralized control over distributed network architectures at bargain costs, software-defined Networking (SDN) is an ever-increasing topic of research. SDN offers a simplified means to dynamically control multiple simple switches via a single controller program, which contrasts with current network infrastructures where individual network operators manage network devices individually. Already, SDN has realized some extraordinary use cases outside of academia with companies, such as Google, AT&T, Microsoft, and many others. However, SDN still presents many research and operational challenges for government, industry, and campus networks. Because of these challenges, many SDN solutions have developed in an ad hoc manner that are not easily adopted by other organizations. Hence, this paper seeks to identify some of the many challenges where new and current researchers can still contribute to the advancement of SDN and further hasten its broadening adoption by network operators. INDEX TERMS Software-defined networking (SDN), network virtualization (NV), network functions virtualization (NFV), standards, SDN interfaces and APIs, data plane, middleboxes, SDN security, hybrid networks, software-defined exchange (SDX), software-defined infrastructure (SDI), software-defined wireless networks (SDWN), Internet of Things (IoT), information-centric networking (ICN), cloud, software-defined RAN, 5G.

Software-Defined Networks for Future Networks and Services

2014

In 2013, the IEEE Future Directions Committee (FDC) formed an SDN work group to explore the amount of interest in forming an IEEE Software-Defined Network (SDN) Community. To this end, a Workshop on “SDN for Future Networks and Services” (SDN4FNS’13) was organized in Trento, Italy (Nov. 11-13 2013). Following the results of the workshop, in this paper, we have further analyzed scenarios, prior-art, state of standardization, and further discussed the main technical challenges and socio-economic aspects of SDN and virtualization in future networks and services. A number of research and development directions have been identified in this white paper, along with a comprehensive analysis of the technical feasibility and business availability of those fundamental technologies. A radical industry transition towards the “economy of information through softwarization” is expected in the near future. Keywords—Software-Defined Networks, SDN, Network Functions Virtualization, NFV, Virtualizatio...

An introduction to Software Defined Networking (SDN) and Network Functions Virtualisation (NFV)

Networking and telecommunications have been spared the major changes that have occurred in computing over the last decade. Speeds have increased and the convergence with Information Technology (IT) has continued. The speed of this convergence is about to increase dramatically. The IT world went through massive change with the introduction of cloud computing, driven by developments in virtualisation. The benefits of the transformation in IT will come to networking and telecommunications in the form of Software Defined Networking (SDN) and Network Functions Virtualisation (NFV). They can be realised in the data centre today and in the customer premises in the near future with the roll-out of high speed ubiquitous broadband. SDN is the extraction of the control functions from networking equipment hardware leaving the hardware with only data plane functions, a separation of the control and data forwarding functions. The control plane functions are migrated as software functions to be ran on standard industry hardware or more often than not on server instances located on virtualised cloud platforms. NFV is a separate but complementary technology that replaces existing functions typically found on specialised hardware with virtualised versions of the same function. These NFVs can be delivered on a virtual Customer Premises Equipment (vCPE) devices that will provide virtualisation locally for the provision of NFVs and/or in concert with cloud based functions at the data centre. The changes in the networking landscape promised over the next few years by SDN and NFV are very exciting. I consider it to be akin to the changes that virtualisation brought to the data centre and the subsequent explosion of cloud computing over the last 5 years or so, yet I remember virtualising many Microsoft Windows flavours simultaneously on VMware on my GNU/Linux desktop to support modems in the 1990s. Therefore it is safe to assume that these developments in SDN and NFV will lead to an explosion of Network Virtualisation outside it's the current sweet spot in the data centre today. It is also becoming clear that the current situation where the skill-sets of the software developer and the network engineer which today is quite different will tend to converge and the network engineer will need to adapt to a world where the command line configuration is replaced or at the very least complemented by a greater reliance on programming and scripting skills.

Review of State of Art of Software Defined Networking for 5G

Journal of Network and Information Security, 2019

The advent of services on the Internet has led to an increased demand for enhanced data rates and connectivity throughout the world. Mobile communication is a complex phenomenon which involves multiple entities working towards increasing the data rates and improving the performance of the cellular networks. Software-defined networking (SDN) is one such paradigm which focuses on decoupling of the data and control planes in order to enable the direct programmability of the network and its corresponding functionalities. The power of SDN is used to fuel the upcoming generation of 5G cellular networks. A detailed study is made with respect to the recent research that has been conducted on the use of SDN in 5G cellular networks. The details of the test beds that are currently available for experimenting with SDN and 5G technologies are mentioned, along with the organizations that are currently working on SDN for 5G. Furthermore, the development of 5G in the Indian scenario is also described.