'Service mesh' technology to solve 6G communication issues

Researchers from South Korea’s Electronics and Telecommunications Research Institute (ETRI) have developed a key 6G technology to address complex communication issues among cloud-native mobile network functions that are dynamically created or terminated in a cloud environment. The team’s so-called ‘service mesh’ technology was showcased at the 6G Symposium Spring 2024, held in Finland back in April.

6G mobile networks are moving away from the dedicated hardware equipment structure of existing 4G/5G networks. They are evolving into a cloud-native architecture where mobile network functions are virtualised into software services that are developed, deployed, executed and managed in a cloud environment.

Accordingly, network functions developed in the form of microservices in various languages and environments are deployed and operated on the cloud. To provide smooth mobile services to users, these microservices need to exchange complex control signals rapidly. However, the existing structure posed issues such as communication delays due to inefficient communication methods.

ETRI’s service mesh architecture has significantly improved communication delay by reducing existing networking procedures by more than 80%. It has reduced the number of networking stacks that a packet passes, which used to be 24 round trips, to just four.

By completely separating the business logic and communication logic that were mixed within existing network functions, and adopting an agent that can selectively use high-speed communication methods such as the Google-developed gRPC, ETRI has enhanced the mobile core network signal processing performance.

Additionally, it provides a 6G development environment where network function developers can focus solely on developing core mobile service functions. Developers no longer need to worry about the communication logic such as network service registration, discovery, connection and authentication.

“ETRI’s service mesh technology can be adopted as a core technology for cloud-native 6G mobile networks,” said Namseok Ko, Head of ETRI’s Mobile Core Network Research Section. “This technological development is expected to enable faster and more efficient 6G communication services and contribute to the advancement of global communication technology.”

ETRI has announced plans to further expand and commercialise this technology through the next-generation communication industry technology development project promoted by the Korean Ministry of Science and ICT.

Image credit: Electronics and Telecommunications Research Institute (ETRI).