5G-ICN: Delivering ICN Services over 5G Using Network Slicing

The challenging requirements of 5G, from both the applications and architecture perspectives, motivate the need to explore the feasibility of delivering services over new network architectures. As 5G proposes application-centric network slicing, which enables the use of new data planes realizable over a programmable compute, storage, and transport infrastructure, we consider information-centric networking as a candidate network architecture to realize 5G objectives. This can coexist with end-to-end IP services that are offered today. To this effect, we first propose a 5G-ICN architecture and compare its benefits (i.e., innovative services offered by leveraging ICN features) to current 3GPP-based mobile architectures. We then introduce a general application-driven framework that emphasizes the flexibility afforded by network functions virtualization and software defined networking over which 5G-ICN can be realized. We specifically focus on the issue of how mobility as a service (MaaS) can be realized as a 5G-ICN slice, and give an in-depth overview on resource provisioning and inter-dependencies and coordination among functional 5G-ICN slices to meet the MaaS objectives. The article tries to show the flexibility of delivering services over ICN where virtualization of control and data plane can be used by applications to meet complex service logic execution while creating value to its end users.