Link-Level Access Cloud Architecture Design Based on SDN for 5G Networks Ameigeiras Gutiérrez, Pablo José Ramos Muñoz, Juan José Schumacher, L. Prados Garzón, Jonathan Navarro Ortiz, Jorge López Soler, Juan Manuel The exponential growth of data traffic and connected devices, and the reduction of latency and costs, are considered major challenges for future mobile communication networks. The satisfaction of these challenges motivates revisiting the architecture of these networks. We propose an SDN-based design of a hierarchical architecture for the 5G packet core. In this article we focus on the design of its access cloud with the goal of providing low latency and scalable Ethernet-like support to terminals and MTC devices including mobility management. We examine and address its challenges in terms of network scalability and support for link-level mobility. We propose a link-level architecture that forwards frames from and to edge network elements (AP and routers) with a label that identifies the APs through which the terminal is reachable. An SDN local controller tracks and updates the users' location information at the edge network elements. Additionally, we propose to delegate in SDN local controllers the handling of non-scalable operations, such as broadcast and multicast messages, and network management procedures. 2021-04-30T11:40:18Z 2021-04-30T11:40:18Z 2015-03 info:eu-repo/semantics/article P. Ameigeiras, J. J. Ramos-munoz, L. Schumacher, J. Prados-Garzon, J. Navarro-Ortiz and J. M. Lopez-soler, "Link-level access cloud architecture design based on SDN for 5G networks," in IEEE Network, vol. 29, no. 2, pp. 24-31, March-April 2015, doi: 10.1109/MNET.2015.7064899. http://hdl.handle.net/10481/68250 10.1109/MNET.2015.7064899 eng http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/es/ info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess Atribución-NoComercial-SinDerivadas 3.0 España Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE)