Next Generation Mobile Core Resource Orchestration: Comprehensive Survey, Challenges and Perspectives

Re-architecting mobile network functions and central office is one of the hottest topics of software defined networking (SDN) and network function virtualization (NFV). It is known as Next generation mobile network (NGMN). The main benefit of re-architecting is to bring cloud advantages to mobile operator networks. On the other hand, while the openness is one of the most wanted characteristics of NGMN, many open source implementations have been introduced to accelerate realizing the NGMN such as resource allocation management and orchestration which is considered as one of the hardest problems in SDN, NFV, and network virtualization. To that end, this article has comprehensively reviewed the mobile core architecture, resource management and orchestration evolutions in order to investigate the relay of the mobile operators on open source components, especially in developing countries, in order to build their future NGMN infrastructure for 4G/5G (fourth/fifth generations) access networks. Furthermore, the article shows a large number of open source infrastructure' components that the operator needs to integrate them together, which is a challenging task. Moreover, the article addresses the integration framework challenges for resource management and orchestration based on continuous integration continuous development (DevOps) model. The outcomes of this work encourage mobile operators to involve and contribute to open source integration efforts as well as build and test their NGMN integration scenarios.