Mobility and Network Management in Virtualized Networks

Management, be it multi-access, resource, mobility or network management, is a key aspect in the design, deployment and operation of current and future networks. The challenges that mobile network management faces today are increasingly associated with the multiplicity of operating environments. For instance, heterogeneous resource sharing, dealing with a larger variety of user profiles, and operating diverse network infrastructures have become commonplace. In this context, it is natural that we witness proliferation and adoption of virtualization techniques in different areas of information and communication technologies (ICT), which then introduce their own management challenges. Although certain virtualization techniques are already embraced in telecommunication networks, such as network sharing, the full potential that can be achieved from a completely virtualized network environment is yet to be realized. In practice, we are not able to fully control these environments. Proponents of network virtualization point to the dramatically increased flexibility in running networks, enabling multiple networks to operate simultaneously over the same infrastructure, while supporting different technologies, protocols, topologies, and quality of service (QoS) and experience (QoE) requirements. All these are not possible with today’s technology. Although virtualization has been studied extensively in other domains, its application to mobile networks is an emergent topic of active research and its impact on resource, mobility, and network management, as well as the related security and autonomicity challenges are open for investigation. What is certain though is that the interest in mobile networks and virtualization is geared to increase. Before we go ahead with the core topic of this special issue, let us stand back for a moment and consider how mobile infrastructure networks have evolved. Traditionally, mobile operators deployed their own, dedicated, access network-specific infrastructure in order to offer different network services to their subscribers. This is not always the case anymore. As we move towards the widespread deployment of mobile broadband based on the fourth generation (4G) of cellular networks, and in parallel with the continuous expansion of previous generation networks, we see that key stakeholders (from operators to regulators) consider changing their modus operandi with respect to network infrastructure build out. We expect that increased infrastructure sharing will be very common in the mid-term. This should not be surprising. The way we understand and interact with communication commodities is continuously evolving. What is new, though, is that the pace of changes in this line of evolution has dramatically accelerated during the last decade, leading to a somewhat hard(er) to forecast path in terms of technology evolution. Although this spans throughout ICT technologies, protocols and infrastructures, wireless and mobile networks are perhaps the most representative example of such an evolution. K. Pentikousis (*) Huawei Technologies, Carnotstrasse 4, 10587 Berlin, Germany e-mail: [email protected]