Cloudifying the 3GPP IP Multimedia Subsystem: Why and How?

The 3GPP IP Multimedia Subsystem (IMS) has been specified as the service delivery platform of 3G networks. It subsequently became the de facto service delivery platform of 4G networks. Cloud computing is an emerging paradigm with inherent benefits such as scalability, elasticity and easy deployment of new applications and services. Scalability and elasticity are currently among the major roadblocks to the wide scale deployment of IMS. Cloudifying IMS can help in removing these roadblocks. It will also certainly bring many other advantages. However, this cloudification is no easy task and is still in its infancy. This paper motivates the cloudification of IMS, critically reviews the architectures proposed so far, sketches a vision and discusses the related research challenges.