Several relevant research and innovation activities have recently investigated the technical and economic advantages of cloud computing for the provisioning of telco service infrastructures, in particular towards all-IP next generation 5G networks. In fact, the evolution of telco service infrastructures traditionally requires a significant upfront investment (and a long adoption process). Conversely, cloud exploitation significantly lowers investment risks by potentially providing elasticity in service provisioning via flexible Virtual Network Functions (VNFs) on top of a Network Functions Virtualization (NFV) Infrastructure. In this context, the paper presents novel solutions that we have designed, implemented, and evaluated within the EU FP7 Mobile Cloud Networking project (MCN). Their aim is to achieve cost-effective elastic provisioning of telco services over heterogeneous and federated cloud providers, with the specific focus of supporting the extreme quality levels that are demanded by traditional, non-virtualized, and dedicated telco infrastructures. In particular, we concentrate on how to effectively and efficiently automate service state migration for coarse-grained telco service (cloudified) components by leveraging industry-mature orchestration technologies and cloud management frameworks. While our proposed state migration model and procedure are general, its implementation is experimented for MCN's Rating, Charging, and Billing as a Service (RCBaaS). This MCN functionality has been chosen by purpose due to its challenging reliability and uptime requirements. The reported experimental and simulation results show the technical feasibility of the proposed solution under different and realistic load conditions for next-generation and cloudified 5G services.

In the last years we have experienced a growing industrial interest in Mobile Cloud Networking (MCN) as the opportunity to exploit the cloud computing paradigm through Network Function Virtualization (NFV), primarily with the goal to reduce CAPEX/OPEX for future mobile networks deployment and operation. The gain from the point of view of infrastructure costs reduction is almost clear and recognized, while many technical challenges are still to be solved, especially with industry-mature solutions, due to the complexity of managing such type of infrastructures. In particular, the dynamicity and flexibility introduced by the virtualization of network functions add novel requirements on the service management and orchestration layers. In this perspective, this paper originally presents the architecture and primary implementation guidelines of the Mobile Cloud Networking framework developed within a large EU FP7 project. More specifically, it focuses on the innovative technical elements of our solution for service management and orchestration, namely i) orchestration strategies based on resource unit affinity and ii) compliance with emerging Open Cloud Computing Interface (OCCI) standards. To practically demonstrate the suitability of the proposed approach, a specific real use case has been implemented, i.e., the cloudification of the 3GPP IP Multimedia Subsystem (IMS), by reporting and analyzing the related performance results.

Cloud computing enables the on-demand delivery of resources for a multitude of services and gives the opportunity for small agile companies to compete with large industries. In the telco world, cloud computing is currently mostly used by mobile network operators (MNO) for hosting non-critical support services and selling cloud services such as applications and data storage. MNOs are investigating the use of cloud computing to deliver key telecommunication services in the access and core networks. Without this, MNOs lose the opportunities of both combining this with over-the-top (OTT) and value-added services to their fundamental service offerings and leveraging cost-effective commodity hardware. Being able to leverage cloud computing technology effectively for the telco world is the focus of mobile cloud networking (MCN). This paper presents the key results of MCN integrated project that includes its architecture advancements, prototype implementation, and evaluation. Results show the efficiency and the simplicity that a MNO can deploy and manage the complete service lifecycle of fully cloudified, composed services that combine OTT/IT- and mobile-network-based services running on commodity hardware. The extensive performance evaluation of MCN using two key proof-of-concept scenarios that compose together many services to deliver novel converged elastic, on-demand mobile-based but innovative OTT services proves the feasibility of such fully virtualized deployments. Results show that it is beneficial to extend cloud computing to telco usage and run fully cloudified mobile-network-based systems with clear advantages and new service opportunities for MNOs and end-users.

Cloud computing is a promising solution for the flexible, on-demand delivery of communication services and infrastructures. The European Union funded project Mobile Cloud Networking is developing a cloud-based mobile communication service platform where service providers deliver virtualized wireless infrastructures integrated with high-level applications running on top of them. Mobile networks are redesigned, placed upon and operated on cloud computing platforms. These then are available with the on-demand, elastic and pay-as-you-go characteristics derived from the cloud principles. In this platform, a variety of services including heterogeneous radio networking, federated computing resources, virtualized network functions, support services and high-level applications are automatically and seamlessly orchestrated in composite end-to-end services delivered to enterprise end-users. The management of Service Level Agreements (SLAs) for these cloud-based composite services requires a dedicated framework to combine and jointly manage the multiple SLAs associated to the different service components. This paper presents an architecture for the enforcement and validation of SLAs for mobile cloud services, discussing its positioning in the overall mobile cloud networking platform and its role across the different phases of the service lifecycle.