Resource Scheduling in ORCA for Next-Generation Mobile Networks: A Survey and Future Outlook

The immense growth of mobile and IoT traffic is pushing the surging data demand beyond the traditional mobile network architectures towards a new domain of architectures, i.e., converged optical and radio networks (ORCA). The architecture can significantly enhance overall networks performance in terms of capacity, latency, dynamic range, reliability, and energy efficiency. Although resource scheduling in ORCA brings unprecedented advantages, which is the key to the success of next-generation (NG) mobile networks, it has also pose some challenges. In this paper, we conduct a state-of-the-art research survey of resource scheduling strategies in ORCA, such as topology-aware dynamic resource allocation, traffic load variation and management in resource allocation, optical layer virtualization, scalability, and energy efficiency aspects. In addition, the techno-economic aspects of the converged network architecture and associated resource scheduling procedure is also summarized. Moreover, we highlight the significance of resource scheduling in real-world scenarios, along with the most relevant open research challenges. Furthermore, we offer insights into the future outlooks of resource scheduling mechanisms and propose a conceptual framework.