Investigating the Deployment of 5G Mobile Core Networks in an Experimental Cloud Computing Infrastructure

Cloud Computing has quickly become one of the most significant emerging technologies of recent years. Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) is widely utilised by many research and industrial projects as a cost effective mechanism of offering services. Cloud computing, based on Network Function Virtualisation (NFV) and Software Defined Networking (SDN), is seen as one of the foundations of emerging 5G mobile core network implementations. The realisation of such deployments, especially for offering carrier grade mobile network services, presents especially significant challenges due to the enormous complexities of these environments. Many academic and industry projects are investigating the feasibility of prototyping and deploying 5G mobile core networks over cloud computing infrastructures. Many of these efforts are in early prototyping stages. In this paper, we investigate the feasibility to implement low cost 5G network technologies in a cloud computing environment. In particular, we investigate the case when virtual network functions are deployed in data centres operated by multiple tenants, and potentially located in distributed geographic premises. Performance evaluation is done in terms of measuring metrics related to cloud computing performance, and also to mobile network operator performance.