Towards programmable mobile networks and network slicing

Several ongoing research and deployment scenarios envision the use of SDN to manage mobile network. Each scenario brings new ideas and challenges to accommodate SDN concepts to mobile network. This tutorial will present recent advance on the use of SDN in 4G and beyond (5G). It will shed light on the advantage of using SDN in mobile network, and the related challenges and issues. The tutorial begins by reviewing the different mobile systems defined by 3GPP, including the Evolved Packet Core (EPC) and Radio Access Networks (RAN). After a short discussion on the basic principles of LTE, the tutorial presents the major architectural enhancements that have been already standardized within 3GPP for supporting Evolved Packet System (EPS). The tutorial will be afterwards touching the ongoing advances in SDN. A particular focus will be done on the current technologies around SDN controllers and the different available APIs (Southbound and Northbound). The tutorial will then review and discuss several use-cases and architectures to introduce SDN in mobile network to manage EPC and RAN, presenting the advantage and inconvenient of each solution in term of performances and implementation. The tutorial will also present the ongoing solutions to combine SDN and Network Function Virtualization (NFV) to enable the programmability of the mobile network architecture, and ease the deployment of Mobile Edge Concept (MEC) and Network Slicing. The tutorial will discuss implementation results of SDN, MEC and Network Slicing on Open Air Interface (OAI) (Open Source of 4G EPC and eNodeB).