Collaboration of Network Operators and Cloud Providers in Software-Controlled Networks

The next generation of networks will need to support massive requests for services that have very stringent performance requirements, and their delivery involves significant computing and storage resources. Prominent examples are the mobile augmented and virtual reality services, processing of large-scale IoT data, and mobile data analytics. In order to address these arising challenges, mobile network operators need innovative solutions, and one such is the close collaboration with the cloud service providers. In this article, we propose a novel system architecture that integrates the infrastructure of Mobile Network Operator (MNO) and Cloud Service Provider (CSP), leveraging recent developments in network softwarization that allows the unified control of the network, computing, and storage resources. We envision a multi-tier architecture where the CSP and MNO exchange real-time information about their resource availability and the users' needs, and jointly devise the servicing policy. We present a blueprint of the architecture, several application examples, and a numerical case study that focuses on distributed computing.