SDN-Based Resource Pooling to Provide Transparent Multi-Path Communications

Fueled by the ever growing consumption of digital content and services, providers of packet- switched networks suffer more and more a conflict between network engineering constraints and end-user usage patterns. This conflict is due to the fact that deployed networks exhibit low efficiency in their average resource utilization rate, which stands opposed to, at times, unsatisfiable resource request peaks generated by users. Multipath transmissions are theoretically able to temper this offset, but have been an uphill road due to the complexity they require to dominate. This article proposes a network paradigm able to transparently provide end users with such capabilities, by virtually pooling network resources through Software-Defined Networking. It is shown how this discipline may be deployed in current network infrastructures, while complying with the main 5G architectures envisaged so far. It is advocated how such an effort may allow service providers to meet users’ expectations and strengthen profits without the need for unbearable financial investments, at the same time seamlessly improving their networks’ performance, reliability, resource utilization efficiency and energy consumption. To demonstrate the technical feasibility and the potential benefits of the proposed approach, we present a set of emulation results showing that the sweet spot between n-fold performance increases and robust resilience properties can be practically met.