Optimal design of 5G superfluid networks: Problem formulation and solutions

The forthcoming 5G technology foresees the exploitation of solutions able to increase both the flexibility and the scalability of the network. In line with the current trend of softwarization, in this work we face the problem of designing a 5G network from the outcome of the Horizon 2020 project Super-fluidity. The core of the project is the definition of a 5G converged architecture based on virtual entities, called Reusable Functional Blocks (RFBs), which can be run on different HardWare (HW) and SoftWare (SW) execution environments. The exploitation of RFBs allows to achieve the required level of flexibility required by 5G. After optimally formulating the problem of minimizing the total installation costs of a SuperFluid network composed of RFBs and physical 5G nodes, we propose a new algorithm, called SFDA, to practically tackle the problem. Our results, obtained over a representative case study, show that SFDA is able to solve the problem in a reasonable amount of time, returning solutions very close to the optimum. In addition, we clearly show the trade offs that emerge between the need of providing a service level to users (in terms of downlink traffic or coverage) and the total costs incurred to install the elements of the network.