Service-aware network function placement for efficient traffic handling in carrier cloud

Carrier Cloud is a promising concept towards the decentralization of mobile networks, to, in turn, alleviate mobile traffic load and reduce mobile operator cost. Carrier cloud is enabled by two main approaches, namely virtualization of the mobile network functions and networking over federated cloud. For intelligent carrier cloud dimensioning, the placement of mobile network functions over federated cloud is of vital importance. In this vein, this paper argues the need for adopting service/application type and requirements as metrics for (i) creating virtual instances of the Packet Data Network Gateways (PDN-GW) and (ii) selecting adequate virtual PDN-GWs for User Equipment receiving specific application type. After modeling this procedure as a nonlinear Optimization Problem and proving it as a NP-hard problem, we propose three solutions to solve it. The proposed solutions are evaluated through computer simulations and encouraging results are obtained.