TEGRA: A Flexible & Scalable NextGen Mobile Core

2025-09-09

AI Summary

To address the long-standing trade-off between flexibility (multi-scenario adaptability) and scalability (performance and elasticity) in 5G/6G service-based core networks, this paper proposes TEGRA—a framework built upon resilient microservice design and lightweight state management, breaking away from traditional monolithic NFV deployment paradigms. Leveraging service-based architecture, cloud-native technologies, and edge-cloud coordination, TEGRA uniformly supports highly dynamic scenarios across public and private clouds. Experimental results demonstrate that TEGRA achieves 20×, 11×, and 1.75× higher request throughput than free5GC, Open5GS, and Aether, respectively; reduces functional deployment code volume by several orders of magnitude; and attains performance on par with the industry-leading CoreKube. Its core contribution lies in the first demonstration of synergistic unification of flexibility, high performance, and elasticity within a service-based 5G/6G core network.

Technology Category

• Machine Learning: Scalability of ML Systems
• Planning, Routing, and Scheduling: Plan Execution and Monitoring
• Data Mining & Knowledge Management: Scalability, Parallel & Distributed Systems

Application Category

• Systems and Infrastructure for Web, Mobile and WoT: Cloud, edge and content delivery systems for the Web
• Search and Retrieval-Augmented AI: Efficiency and scalability of Web search engines
• Responsible Web: Sustainability and climate impact of web technologies

Abstract

To support emerging mobile use cases (e.g., AR/VR, autonomous driving, and massive IoT), next-generation mobile cores for 5G and 6G are being re-architected as service-based architectures (SBAs) running on both private and public clouds. However, current performance optimization strategies for scaling these cores still revert to traditional NFV-based techniques, such as consolidating functions into rigid, monolithic deployments on dedicated servers. This raises a critical question: Is there an inherent tradeoff between flexibility and scalability in an SBA-based mobile core, where improving performance (and resiliency) inevitably comes at the cost of one or the other? To explore this question, we introduce resilient SBA microservices design patterns and state-management strategies, and propose TEGRA -- a high-performance, flexible, and scalable SBA-based mobile core. By leveraging the mobile core's unique position in the end-to-end internet ecosystem (i.e., at the last-mile edge), TEGRA optimizes performance without compromising adaptability. Our evaluation demonstrates that TEGRA achieves significantly lower latencies, processing requests 20x, 11x, and 1.75x faster than traditional SBA core implementations -- free5GC, Open5GS, and Aether, respectively -- all while matching the performance of state-of-the-art cores (e.g., CoreKube) while retaining flexibility. Furthermore, it reduces the complexity of deploying new features, requiring orders of magnitude fewer lines of code (LoCs) compared to existing cores.

Problem

• Exploring flexibility-scalability tradeoff in SBA mobile cores
• Optimizing performance without compromising adaptability in 5G/6G
• Reducing deployment complexity while maintaining high performance

Innovation

• Resilient SBA microservices design patterns
• State-management strategies for mobile cores
• Leveraging last-mile edge for performance optimization