Software-as-a-Service for the Virtualization of Mobile Network Gateways

Network functions virtualization is one of the most promising networking technology trends for mobile operators. Such functions often are considered as virtualized version of physical devices. They follow the same implementation, deployment, and operation and management model as such physical entities. However, some key characteristics of the underlying cloud technologies, such as the elastic provisioning of resources, the different hardware failure rates and the increasing programmability of the underlying network enable new design paradigms. Thus, virtual network functions should leverage on IT technologies like Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) to reduce operational costs and enable new business models. We introduce a classification of different design paradigms, detail how a SaaS implementation can be performed for mobile network gateways, and provide a comparison of the operation cost implications of employing such paradigms to create network nodes in a mobile network.