Caching and Containerization of IP Address Allocation Process in 5G Core Networks for Performance Improvements

We present the implementation of a caching system within the IP Allocation Service of the 5G Core Networks. The IP allocation service is one of many services in the Session Management Function (SMF) of the 5G Core that supports the allocation and management of User Equipment (UE) IP addresses. Normally, this service uses a database layer to manage the available IP address ranges. However, the current design of this function requires a database fetch for every IP address allocation request, which is called every time session establishment is called. This is costly in terms of computing and networking resources. Our proposed solution employs a caching system that fragments the available IP pool between pods (deployable computing units managed by Kubernetes that make up the service), saves the ranges to the pods' local memory resources from a shared database layer, and allows each pod to independently manage IP addresses within its range. Our testing results show that this architecture greatly improves the networking resources consumed while maintaining the consistency of IP address allocations across the network.