Context-Awareness Enhances 5G Multi-Access Edge Computing Reliability

The fifth generation (5G) mobile telecommunication network is expected to support Multi- Access Edge Computing (MEC), which intends to distribute computation tasks and services from the central cloud to the edge clouds. Towards ultra-responsive, ultra-reliable and ultra-low-latency MEC services, the current mobile network security architecture should enable a more decentralized approach for authentication and authorization processes. This paper proposes a novel decentralized authentication architecture that supports flexible and low-cost local authentication with the awareness of context information of network elements such as user equipment and virtual network functions. Based on a Markov model for backhaul link quality, as well as a random walk mobility model with mixed mobility classes and traffic scenarios, numerical simulations have demonstrated that the proposed approach is able to achieve a flexible balance between the network operating cost and the MEC reliability.Comment: Accepted by IEEE Access on Feb. 02, 201

Security challenges of small cell as a service in virtualized mobile edge computing environments

Research on next-generation 5G wireless networks is currently attracting a lot of attention in both academia and industry. While 5G development and standardization activities are still at their early stage, it is widely acknowledged that 5G systems are going to extensively rely on dense small cell deployments, which would exploit infrastructure and network functions virtualization (NFV), and push the network intelligence towards network edges by embracing the concept of mobile edge computing (MEC). As security will be a fundamental enabling factor of small cell as a service (SCaaS) in 5G networks, we present the most prominent threats and vulnerabilities against a broad range of targets. As far as the related work is concerned, to the best of our knowledge, this paper is the first to investigate security challenges at the intersection of SCaaS, NFV, and MEC. It is also the first paper that proposes a set of criteria to facilitate a clear and effective taxonomy of security challenges of main elements of 5G networks. Our analysis can serve as a staring point towards the development of appropriate 5G security solutions. These will have crucial effect on legal and regulatory frameworks as well as on decisions of businesses, governments, and end-users

An Integrated, Virtualized Joint Edge and Fog Computing System with Multi-RAT Convergence

Notably, developing an innovative architectural network paradigm is essential to address the technical challenging of 5G applications' requirements in a unified platform. Forthcoming applications will provide a wide range ofnetworking, computing and storage capabilities closer to the endusers.In this context, the 5G-PPP Phase two project named "5GCORAL:A 5G Convergent Virtualized Radio Access Network Living at the Edge" aims at identifying and experimentally validating which are the key technology innovations allowing for the development of a convergent 5G multi-RAT access based on a virtualized Edge and Fog architecture being scalable, flexible and interoperable with other domains including transport, core network and distant Clouds. In 5G-CORAL, an architecture is proposed based on ETSI MEC and ETSI NFV frameworks in a unified platform. Then, a set of exemplary use cases benefiting from Edge and Fog networks in near proximity of the end-user are proposed for demonstration on top of connected car, shopping mall and high-speed train platforms.This work has been partially funded by the H2020 collaborative Europe/Taiwan research project 5G-CORAL (grant num. 761586

Integration of LoRa Wide Area Network with the 5G Test Network

Abstract. The global communication network is going through major transformation from conventional to more versatile and diversified network approaches. With the advent of virtualization and cloud technology, information technology (IT) is merging with telecommunications to alter the conventional approaches of traditional proprietary networking techniques. From radio to network and applications, the existing infrastructure lacks several features that we wished to be part of 5th Generation Mobile Networks (5G). Having a support for large number of applications, Internet of Things (IoT) will bring a major evolution by creating a comfortable, flexible and an automated environment for end users. A network having the capability to support radio protocols on top of basic networking protocols, when blended with a platform which can generate IoT use cases, can make the expectations of 5G a reality. Low Power Wide Area Network (LPWAN) technologies can be utilized with other emerging and suitable technologies for IoT applications. To implement a network where all the technologies can be deployed virtually to serve their applications within a single cloud, Network Functions Virtualization (NFV) and Software Defined Network (SDN) is introduced to implement such a networking possibility for upcoming technologies. The 5G Test Network (5GTN), a testbed for implementing and testing 5G features in real time, is deployed in virtual platform which allows to add other technologies for IoT applications. To implement a network with an IoT enabler technology, LoRa Wide Area Network (LoRaWAN) technology can be integrated to test the feasibility and capability of IoT implications. LoRaWAN being an IoT enabler technology is chosen out of several possibilities to be integrated with the 5GTN. Using MultiConnect Conduit as a gateway, the integration is realized by establishing point to point protocol (PPP) connection with eNodeB. Once the connection is established, LoRa packets are forwarded to the ThingWorx IoT cloud and responses can be received by the end-devices from that IoT cloud by using Message Queuing Telemetry Transport (MQTT) protocol. Wireshark, an open source packet analyser, is then used to ensure successful transmission of packets to the ThingWorx using the 5GTN default packet routes

Agile management and interoperability testing of SDN/NFV-enriched 5G core networks

In the fifth generation (5G) era, the radio internet protocol capacity is expected to reach 20Gb/s per sector, and ultralarge content traffic will travel across a faster wireless/wireline access network and packet core network. Moreover, the massive and mission-critical Internet of Things is the main differentiator of 5G services. These types of real-time and large-bandwidth-consuming services require a radio latency of less than 1 ms and an end-to-end latency of less than a few milliseconds. By distributing 5G core nodes closer to cell sites, the backhaul traffic volume and latency can be significantly reduced by having mobile devices download content immediately from a closer content server. In this paper, we propose a novel solution based on software-defined network and network function virtualization technologies in order to achieve agile management of 5G core network functionalities with a proof-of-concept implementation targeted for the PyeongChang Winter Olympics and describe the results of interoperability testing experiences between two core networks

CN2F: A Cloud-Native Cellular Network Framework

Upcoming 5G and Beyond 5G (B5G) cellular networks aim to improve the efficiency and flexibility of mobile networks by incorporating various technologies, such as Software Defined Networking (SDN), Network Function Virtualization (NFV), and Network Slicing (NS). In this paper, we share our findings, accompanied by a comprehensive online codebase, about the best practice of using different open-source projects in order to realize a flexible testbed for academia and industrial Research and Development (R&D) activities on the future generation of cellular networks. In particular, a Cloud-Native Cellular Network Framework (CN2F) is presented which uses OpenAirInterface's codebase to generate cellular Virtual Network Functions (VNFs) and deploys Kubernetes to disperse and manage them among some worker nodes. Moreover, CN2F leverages ONOS and Mininet to emulate the effect of the IP transport networks in the fronthaul and backhaul of real cellular networks. In this paper, we also showcase two use cases of CN2F to demonstrate the importance of Edge Computing (EC) and the capability of Radio Access Network (RAN) slicing