Computing in the Network: The Core-Edge Continuum in 6G Network

Recent advances in virtualization technologies and distributed networking architectures have led to an increased interest in jointly considering computation and forwarding in network nodes. This is spurred in great parts by the proliferation of edge computing as a complementary or even alternative to centralized cloud computing and supplementing data centers for data-driven, time-sensitive, and critical applications and telemetry. These trends have given rise to the concept of the edge-cloud continuum, the melding of networking and computing with common and tightly integrated resource allocation capabilities from the edge of the network to the back-end cloud infrastructure including computing and storage. The network is becoming more like a distributed computer board than the telephone network of yore: instead of providing connections and forwarding, the network can now be considered as an essential constituent of the applications themselves where the boundaries between the networking and computing domains are redefined. Although the joint optimization of communication and computation resource allocation has already been proposed in the past, it predated the current softwarization of networks, the development of new resource sharing paradigms in mobile networks, as well as the rise of data-driven approaches including machine learning. The availability of new hardware architectures (e.g. Tofino) and programming frameworks (e.g. P4) makes it possible to perform some in-network computing at line speed. In order to better understand the fundamental changes that computing will bring to the 6G era, this chapter examines the state of the art of the in-network computation areas and how the edge-cloud continuum should evolve to support the next generation of applications and service.