State Space Analysis to Refactor the Mobile Core

A state space analysis of the variables used by the network functions that serve the mobile core provides insights on the multiple roles portrayed by each network function. These insights can be leveraged to modularize and subsequently refactor the network functions that are expected to serve the fifth generation mobile networks (5G). In this paper, we group the variables according to their usage in each network function, then we identify the producers and consumers of these variable groups during the various events triggered to serve the mobile devices. We leverage on the producers and consumers of state changes to propose a publish-subscribe control plane in which the producers and consumers of state changes are the publishers and subscribers respectively.