Next-generation mobile core networks are required to be scalable and capable of efficiently utilizing heterogeneous bare metal resources that may include edge servers. To this end, microservice-based solutions where control plane procedures are deconstructed in their fundamental building blocks are gaining momentum. This letter proposes an optimization framework delivering the partitioning and mapping of large-scale microservice graphs onto heterogeneous bare metal deployments while minimizing the total network traffic among servers. An efficient heuristic strategy for solving the optimization problem is also provided. Simulation results show that, with the proposed framework, a microservice-based core can consistently support the requested load in heterogeneous bare metal deployments even when alternative architecture fails. Besides, our framework ensures an overall reduction in the control plane-related network traffic if compared to current core architectures.

https://doi.org/10.1109/TVT.2024.3355335