Network Slice Mobility in Next Generation Mobile Systems: Challenges and Potential Solutions

Network slicing offers numerous benefits, particularly the ability to deliver highly customizable services to new industry sectors that have been unserved or inadequately served by current mobile network operators. Among new industry use cases that are targeted by the fifth generation (5G) mobile systems, there exist scenarios that go beyond what the current device-centric mobility approaches can support. The mobility of low latency communication services, shared by a group of moving devices, e.g., autonomous vehicles that share sensor data, is a prime example of these cases. These use cases' demands for ultra-low latency can be addressed by leveraging the Multi-Access Edge Computing (MEC) concept, techniques for live migration of virtual resources, Software Defined Networking (SDN), and network slicing. In this article, we define different slice mobility patterns, different methods for grouping users, and different triggers for network slice mobility. Furthermore, we evaluate the mobility of services and network slices based on the simultaneous migrations of multiple containers.