Deep learning based resource forecasting for 5G core network scaling in Kubernetes environment
Menuka Perera Jayasuriya Kuranage, Loutfi Nuaymi, Ahmed Bouabdallah, Thomas Ferrandiz, Philippe Bertin · 2022
5G networks are moving towards cloudification which gives the telecom operators the flexibility to manage their networks efficiently and cost-effectively. Scaling network functions on demand is one of the advantages of using container-based deployment in cloud environments. With the continuously changing network traffic patterns due to the emerging new 5G use cases, there is a need for novel automated network resources management approach in cloud-native environments. Considering the scale and the complexity of the 5G network, managing resources is a challenge. To address this, we propose a deep learning-based resource usage forecasting approach that provides useful insights for decision-making in containerized Network Function (CNF) scaling for the Kubernetes environment. Kubernetes is a container orchestration tool that becoming popular among Telecom operators due to its simplicity. We implemented a testbed in the Kubernetes environment to generate a dataset closer to real-world data for deep learning model training and evaluated the best-performing model for resource usage forecasting. We benchmarked our approach against another deep learning-based resource usage forecasting approach which proved our method can provide a highly accurate forecast for further horizons.