Software Defined Network-Based Management for Enhanced 5G Network Services

Abstract

Due to the fast development in communication technology and the emerging usage of Internet of Things (IoT) devices that produce a huge amount of data, the fifth generation (5G) mobile network is introduced to support this development. This mobile network can provide many advanced communication features in cellular phones. But unfortunately, this technology faces many challenges. One of its defective challenges is the management of a massive number of devices running different services, so Software Defined Network (SDN) is proposed as a key technology to overcome this drawback. SDN architecture provides higher flexibility, scalability, cost-effectiveness, and energy efficiency in 5G mobile networks. There are usually different architectures for the SDN control plane. We study some of these architectures, and we conciliate the usage of Logically Centralized-Physically Distributed (LC-PD) controller management architecture in 5G networks. This architecture enables providing higher throughput, and lower latency compared to other control plane architectures. In this paper, we focus on the demonstration that the LC-PD control plane architecture improves communication efficiency and the Quality of Services (QoS) of running internet services in the 5G mobile network. We use the Mininet-WIFI emulator in our simulation tests. Our conducted simulations show that employing the LC-PD control plane architecture in 5G networks enhances the QoS of Internet services compared to other SDN implementations.