Issue link: https://hub.radisys.com/i/870977
RADISYS SOLUTION BRIEF | Radisys M-CORD: The Open Platform for Emerging 5G Applications 8 www.radisys.com Optimized Core for Static IoT Devices The EPC has significant control plane signaling overhead with respect to session and mobility management procedures that kicks in when devices connect to it. With the advent of billions of IoT devices, this overhead is going to exponentially increase and will eventually overwhelm the core network. The majority of IoT devices are one of two types: ones that are mobile (connected cars, package tracking etc.) and ones that are static (smart meter, smart appliances at user premise). Static IoT devices do not need mobility support, making this a targeted area to provide an optimized core for such devices. The solution is based on the following key concepts: • Classification of Users (static vs mobile) – this identification is done on non-access stratum information such as IMSI, APN, etc., at the core. The MME has been disaggregated into a session management and a mobility management VNF to conduct this classification. • Slice Selection Functionality – once a device a classified, during attach time an EPC slide is appropriately selected for the device based on whether it needs mobility or not. This is done at the session management VNF of the MME since it has access to the user subscription information from the Home Subscribe Server (HSS) (and also all NAS information pertaining to a user). • Thin SDNized User Plane – for the IoT device, since the user plane traffic is going to be limited (in terms of packet sizes), an IoT gateway is provided for the LTE user plane (data path forwarding) which is controlled via ONOS (SDN controller). This gateway is stateless and hence can be elastically scaled up or down based on real traffic situations. The figure below describes the above concept from a VNF perspective: Regular LTE Handset MME Dis-Aggregation OpenFlow S1C S1U CORE GW SLICE 1 (Legacy Slice) IP Cloud Connectionless GW SGW RAN MME Session Management + GE Slice Selection Function MME Mobility Management UE-1 UE-2 PGW-C PGW-D CORE GW SLICE 2 (Connectionless Slice) Static IoT Device CONTROL PLANE SIGNALLING FOR REGULAR LTE DEVICE USER PLANE SIGNALLING FOR REGULAR LTE DEVICE CONTROL PLANE SIGNALLING FOR REGULAR STATIC IoT DEVICE USER PLANE SIGNALLING FOR REGULAR STATIC IoT DEVICE