The case for serverless mobile networking

Abstract

The softwarization of communication networks provides notable benefits, such as flexibility, improved resource efficiency, and commoditization. In exchange, softwarization requires an increased management overhead and the need to re-design network operation. While the mobile networking eco-system is currently adapting this new paradigm with other network-related aspects (e.g., network slicing), cloud computing already addressed such problems with the introduction of serverless architectures, also known as Function as a Service (FaaS). With this approach, the software is decomposed into its minimum building blocks, i.e., functions, maximizing scalability, resource efficiency, and flexibility. In this paper, we analyze the potential adoption of the FaaS paradigm by the mobile networking ecosystem, discussing the implicit advantages, the challenges to address, and some solutions to overcome them.