Smart Virtualization for Packet Forwarding in 5G and Beyond Communication Networks

Abstract

In this thesis, novel ideas have been proposed to tackle the delay and connection continuity, which are caused by different factors related to wired and wireless communication system networks. The vast majority, if we do not say all of these systems adopt packet switch schemes to transfer the data amongst network devices. Moreover, all these systems aim to deliver the data from the source to the destination according to particular Identifiers (IDs) of these devices. The most well-known IDs that are used to distinguish devices are IP address, MAC address, and Subscriber National Number. By virtualizing the servers of communication systems, new concepts of communication networks have emerged. For instance, a mobile operator’s core network function servers could be virtualized, installed, and run by Virtual Machines (VMs) to execute these functions. Also, routers, switches, firewalls, and other network devices could be virtualized by using SDN, NFV, and new- generation protocols such as OpenFlow to create a high performance of the virtualized communication network. From this point of view, we proposed novel concepts such as SVeNB which mimicked the functions of the base station and the core network of a mobile operator network. The SVeNB performance exceeded the C-RAN with 68% in user profiles treatment. Also, the SVeNB reduced the End-to-End delay to 62%. Other advantages of the virtualization are ease of separating the functions and control layer of the networks. This approach urged researchers to suggest a new communication network topologies and innovative designing of flexible and programmable routing protocols. As a result of these approaches, emerging the SDN networks to carry packet forwarding schemes on the communication networks. Based on the facts mentioned above, we designed a novel idea to generate a tag as a mobile node’s ID from E.164 standard numbering and MAC address to handle the packets inside the networks. The results showed that the packet loss rate decreased to 4% of that were lost during the handover delay time or while packets re-direction mechanism. At the same time, the MN could receive 96.4% of the data that was lost during the handover process. Mobility management is a vital issue in wireless communication, due to the necessity of changing the ID of the wireless attached Access Points (APs) by a moving target which connects to that APs. The biggest obstacle of mobility is that the addresses resolution should be made in real time. More difficulty is added when the motion of moving targets is very speedy, for example, such as High-Speed Trains. A novel proactive scheme has been presented by chapter 4 for directing the packet flows among the APs, with support of the trigger signal to activate layer 2 handover. By using the triggering signal, the performance of the suggested network surpassed the performance results that were not supported by the triggering signal. The average control delay time was reduced by nearly 45% and the retrieved data were roughly 90% of packet loss when adopting the triggering signal system.