Cloud-Native Plinth: A Platform to Support Containerized 5G Core Networks

With the proliferation of 5G Core (5GC) network workloads, the cloudification of 5GC has emerged as a pre-dominant trend. Cloud-native technologies enhance the carrier cloud of 5GC by providing capabilities for rapid recovery, agility, elasticity, and scalable service access. Beyond the management and orchestration systems, it is imperative to deploy several other common services to fully realize the advantages of cloud-native environments. In this paper, we propose Cloud-Native Plinth (CNP), a collection of cloud-native services built on the Platform as a Service (PaaS) layer to support the deployment of containerized 5GC. Within the architecture of CNP, specific services essential for the operation of containerized Virtual Network Functions (VNFs) are delineated. These services are implemented through Cloud-Native Computing Foundation (CNCF) projects and are tailored to the unique requirements of 5GC. Furthermore, the introduction of CNP not only facilitates the deployment of containerized 5GC but also enhances its high availability, performance, and reliability.