Data Consistency in the 5G Specification

Meeting the goals of 5G networks - high bandwidth, low latency, massive connectivity, and resiliency demands improvements to the infrastructure that hosts the network components. Mobile Network Operators will rely on a geographically distributed and highly scalable infrastructure that must handle and replicate user data consistently. This paper explores the management of user data with regards to data consistency in the first 5G specification. In particular we will focus on how the 5G system procedures handle and update data, and discuss failure scenarios where the correctness properties of the user data may be violated. In this work we present the necessary properties that an underlying data store must deliver in order to maintain correctness in the presence of failures.