Virtualization of the LTE EPC using the SDN approach -

Abstract

In the LTE Evolved Packet Core (EPC), many network entities and interfaces have to be maintained and updated regularly. Moreover, to accommodate more users, new hardware must be integrated but rarely used. To address these challenges, the EPC can be moved to the cloud using two modern technologies: Software Defined Networking (SDN) and Network Function Virtualization (NFV). In this thesis, we study the impact of integrating these novel technologies on LTE networks. We propose a hybrid approach for selecting whether to apply NFV or SDN on each gateway at a given time while minimizing the network load taking into consideration some parameters such as the number of active datacenters, the deployment city population, the intensity at a given time, the QoS class identifier (QCI), the generated traffic volume, and the delay budget. We formulated SDN decomposition-NFV virtualization selection, as an optimization problem where the objective is to minimize the network load subject to a set of constraints. The proposed solution is more responsive to the dynamic state of the network such that for a given gateway, at a certain time slot, an SDN decomposition might be the optimal choice while at another time slot with different network state, the NFV architecture might be more suitable.