Performance costs for IPv6-based mobility management on the top of Kubernetes

The next-generation mobile networks are expected to provide advanced services, which require the network to be more scalable and resilient. A possible approach to solve this would be a cloud-native network, upon which containerized network functions could be deployed: this is why Kubernetes is gaining attention among network software vendors and service providers. Kubernetes has become the de-facto industry standard for orchestrating containerized resources at real-life scales. However, Kubernetes ’s abilities might seem to be limited. Currently, it lacks the toolset for advanced L2/L3 level networking, which would be essential, for example, in the case of IPv6-based mobility management. Furthermore, many types of software architectures can be envisioned on the top of Kubernetes which may have different impacts on performance. This paper examines different microservice approaches in the context of Mobile IPv6 and Proxy Mobile IPv6, including their service automation capabilities. We evaluate them from functional and performance perspectives and provide statements about their usability in mobile networks.