Accelerated Virtual Switching Support of 5G NFV-based Mobile Networks

5G should be operational with high penetration beyond the year 2020 with data traffic rates increasing exponentially and the number of connected devices expected to surpass tens of billions. Requirements for 5G mobile networks include higher flexibility, scalability, cost effectiveness and energy efficiency. Towards these goals, Software Defined Networking (SDN) and Network Functions Virtualisation have been adopted in recent proposals for future mobile networks architectures because they are considered critical technologies for 5G. In this paper, we make a case for using virtual switching acceleration of EPC Virtual Network Function interconnection with the goal of meeting 5G network requirements. In our implementation, we use DPDK user space virtual switching as well as XDP kernel space forwarding instead of native OVS switching found an many standard network virtualisation environments. Using these tools we measure improved network service quality performance for EPC connections.