The challenging requirements of 5G--from both the applications and thearchitecture perspectives--motivate the need to explore the feasibility ofdelivering services over new network architectures. As 5G proposesapplication-centric network slicing, which enables the use of new data planesrealizable over a programmable compute, storage, and transport infrastructure,we consider Information-centric Networking (ICN) as a candidate networkarchitecture to realize 5G objectives. This can co-exist with end-to-end IPservices that are offered today. To this effect, we first propose a 5G-ICNarchitecture and compare its benefits (i.e., innovative services offered byleveraging ICN features) to current 3GPP-based mobile architectures. We thenintroduce a general application-driven framework that emphasizes on theflexibility afforded by Network Function Virtualization (NFV) and SoftwareDefined Networking (SDN) over which 5G-ICN can be realized. We specificallyfocus on the issue of how mobility-as-a-service (MaaS) can be realized as a5G-ICN slice, and give an in-depth overview on resource provisioning andinter-dependencies and -coordinations among functional 5G-ICN slices to meetthe MaaS objectives.
展开▼
