xmlui.dri2xhtml.METS-1.0.item-contributor-funder:
European Commission
Sponsor:
This work has received funding from the European Unions
Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant
agreement No 671598 (5G-Crosshaul project) and 761536
(5G-Transformer project), and from Science Foundation Ireland (SFI) under Grant Number 17/CDA/4760
Virtualized Radio Access Network (vRAN) architectures constitute a promising solution for the densification needs
of 5G networks, as they decouple Base Stations (BUs) functions
from Radio Units (RUs) allowing the processing power to be
pooled at cost-efficiVirtualized Radio Access Network (vRAN) architectures constitute a promising solution for the densification needs
of 5G networks, as they decouple Base Stations (BUs) functions
from Radio Units (RUs) allowing the processing power to be
pooled at cost-efficient Central Units (CUs). vRAN facilitates
the flexible function relocation (split selection), and therefore
enables splits with less stringent network requirements compared
to state-of-the-art fully Centralized (C-RAN) systems. In this
paper, we study the important and challenging vRAN design
problem. We propose a novel modeling approach and a rigorous
analytical framework, FluidRAN, that minimizes RAN costs by
jointly selecting the splits and the RUs-CUs routing paths. We
also consider the increasingly relevant scenario where the RAN
needs to support multi-access edge computing (MEC) services,
that naturally favor distributed RAN (D-RAN) architectures.
Our framework provides a joint vRAN/MEC solution that
minimizes operational costs while satisfying the MEC needs. We
follow a data-driven evaluation method, using topologies of 3
operational networks. Our results reveal that (i) pure C-RAN is
rarely a feasible upgrade solution for existing infrastructure, (ii)
FluidRAN achieves significant cost savings compared to D-RAN
systems, and (iii) MEC can increase substantially the operator’s
cost as it pushes vRAN function placement back to RUs.[+][-]
Description:
Proceeding of: IEEE Conference on Computer Communications, INFOCOM 2018, Honolulu, Hawai, USA, 16-19 April 2018