Call for Papers

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Networking technology is slowly but steadily adopting two key principles from cloud computing, namely, softwarization and modularization. This has resulted in the success of technologies such as Software Defined Networking (SDN) and Network Function Virtualization (NFV), which are being adopted by mobile networking as well. On the other hand, serverless computing has revolutionized cloud computing and brought to attention Function-as-a-Service (FaaS), which is convenient to programmers and enables extreme scalability. In principle, convergence of the modularized and softwarized networks and serverless computing technologies could benefit both: future network architectures would take advantage of the leading technologies and best practices in the cloud ecosystem, which already today can manage efficiently a massive amount of services worldwide; cloud solutions would expand the portfolio of their target applications by also including real-time, reliable, and very high throughput applications that are not yet supported. However, there are a number of challenges that need to be addressed and require the attention of the research community, for instance: current VNFs are not truly agnostic to the underlying NFV infrastructure; the ability to operate at wire speed is challenged by “kernel bypassing “techniques; emerging mobile applications with strict service level agreements (SLAs) along with this native cloudification of networks results in a management problem of unprecedented complexity.

Operators and stakeholders need extensive validation of these automation solutions when providing strict SLA (e.g., mission critical, ultra reliable low-latency) prior to their adoption. This FT/SI calls for recent advances of practical work on the adoption of the serverless paradigm in the above areas. The objective is to have a selection of high-quality technical papers, with experimental validation, to assess the maturity of the technology towards its adoption by the mobile communication industry.

Prospective authors are invited to submit articles on topics including, but not limited to:

• Functional programming for NFV
• Serverless computing in edge, fog, and cloud architectures
• Implementation of virtual network functions with FaaS
• Protocols for distributed serverless computing in the networks of the future
• Serverless computing in 6G network architectures
• Performance evaluation of serverless mobile computing
• Modelling, analysis, and simulation of serverless mobile computing
• Serverless computing for Internet of Things applications
• Technical-economic analysis of serverless mobile computing business cases
• Ultra low latency serverless computing technologies
• Serverless computing for the control/management network planes and SDN
• Novel virtualization paradigms for extreme serverless computing in mobile networks
• Dependable and consistent state management for FaaS workflows
• Wire-speed function call invocations
• Dynamic and automated interconnection of serverless environments
• Serverless-based network slicing

Submission Guidelines

Manuscripts should conform to the standard format as indicated in the Information for Authors section of the Manuscript Submission Guidelines. Please, check these guidelines carefully before submitting since submissions not complying with them will be administratively rejected without review.

All manuscripts to be considered for publication must be submitted by the deadline through Author Portal. Select the “FT-2225 / Serverless mobile computing: from theory to practice” topic from the drop-down menu of Topic/Series titles. Please observe the dates specified here below noting that there will be no extension of submission deadline.

Important Dates

Manuscript Submission Deadline: 30 April 2023
Decision Notification: 15 July 2023
Final Manuscript Due: 1 September 2023
Publication Date: October 2023

Guest Editors

Pablo Serrano (Lead Guest Editor)
Universidad Carlos III de Madrid, Spain

Claudio Cicconetti
IIT-CNR, Italy

Adel N. Toosi
Monash University, Australia

Meryem Simsek
VMware, USA