Evaluating CAP Theorem on a Stateless 5G Core

With multiple Network Functions (NFs) participating, the current Service Based Architecture (SBA) of 5G Core (5GC) is crafted stateless, scalable, robust, and reliable to cater to various service requirements. While Beyond 5G (BSG) and 6G networks aim to achieve higher resilience, studying the Consistency (C), Availability (A), and Partition (P) tolerance (CAP) theorem becomes a critical need for SBA-based SGC to evaluate its impact. In this paper, we evaluate the CAP theorem on the 3GPP-compliant non-roaming stateless SGC and show the trade-off between Consistency and Partition tolerance (CP) mode and Availability and Partition tolerance (AP) mode of functioning. Experiments prove that the SGC in CP mode serves more PDU session requests while remaining less available as compared to the SGC in AP mode.