scholarly journals Orchestration and Control in Software-Defined 5G Networks: Research Challenges

2018 ◽  
Vol 2018 ◽  
pp. 1-18 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gianfranco Nencioni ◽  
Rosario G. Garroppo ◽  
Andres J. Gonzalez ◽  
Bjarne E. Helvik ◽  
Gregorio Procissi
Keyword(s):  
Access Network ◽  
Network Function Virtualization ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Major Step ◽  
Core Networks ◽  
Network Function ◽  
Research Challenges ◽  
Radio Access ◽  
Cost Efficient ◽  
And Control

The fifth generation (5G) of cellular networks promises to be a major step in the evolution of wireless technology. 5G is planned to be used in a very broad set of application scenarios. These scenarios have strict heterogeneous requirements that will be accomplished by enhancements on the radio access network and a collection of innovative wireless technologies. Softwarization technologies, such as Software-Defined Networking (SDN) and Network Function Virtualization (NFV), will play a key role in integrating these different technologies. Network slicing emerges as a cost-efficient solution for the implementation of the diverse 5G requirements and verticals. The 5G radio access and core networks will be based on a SDN/NFV infrastructure, which will be able to orchestrate the resources and control the network in order to efficiently and flexibly and with scalability provide network services. In this paper, we present the up-to-date status of the software-defined 5G radio access and core networks and a broad range of future research challenges on the orchestration and control aspects.

scholarly journals AMF Optimal Placement based on Deep Reinforcement Learning in Heterogeneous Radio Access Network

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
hao jin ◽  
Wenzhe Pang ◽  
Chenglin Zhao
Keyword(s):  
Reinforcement Learning ◽  
Mobility Management ◽  
Network Architecture ◽  
Access Network ◽  
Optimal Placement ◽  
Network Function Virtualization ◽  
User Mobility ◽  
Radio Access Network ◽  
Network Function ◽  
Radio Access

Abstract To support various service requirements such as massive Machine Type Communications, Ultra-Reliable and Low-Latency Communications in 5G scenario, Network Function Virtualization (NFV) plays an important role in the 5G network architecture to manage and orchestrate network services. As the key network function responsible for mobility management, Access and Mobility Management Function (AMF) can be deployed flexibly at the edge of the radio access network to improve the performance of mobility management based on NFV. In this paper, the optimal placement of AMF is addressed based on Deep Reinforcement Learning (DRL) in a heterogeneous radio access network, which aims to minimize the network utility including the average delay of mobility management requests at AMF, the average wired hops to relay the requests and the cost of AMF instances. By considering time-varying features including user mobility and the arrival rate of user mobility management requests, an AMF optimal placement approach is proposed for the long term optimization. Simulation results show that the performance of the proposed DRL based AMF optimal placement approach outperforms that of the baselines.

scholarly journals Robust Baseband Compression Against Congestion in Packet-Based Fronthaul Networks Using Multiple Description Coding

Entropy ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 21 (4) ◽  
pp. 433 ◽  
Author(s):  
Seok-Hwan Park ◽  
Osvaldo Simeone ◽  
Shlomo Shamai (Shitz)
Keyword(s):  
Access Network ◽  
General Purpose ◽  
Multiple Description Coding ◽  
Network Function Virtualization ◽  
Path Diversity ◽  
Network Function ◽  
Multiple Description ◽  
Radio Access ◽  
Multiple Routes ◽  
Description Coding

In modern implementations of Cloud Radio Access Network (C-RAN), the fronthaul transport network will often be packet-based and it will have a multi-hop architecture built with general-purpose switches using network function virtualization (NFV) and software-defined networking (SDN). This paper studies the joint design of uplink radio and fronthaul transmission strategies for a C-RAN with a packet-based fronthaul network. To make an efficient use of multiple routes that carry fronthaul packets from remote radio heads (RRHs) to cloud, as an alternative to more conventional packet-based multi-route reception or coding, a multiple description coding (MDC) strategy is introduced that operates directly at the level of baseband signals. MDC ensures an improved quality of the signal received at the cloud in conditions of low network congestion, i.e., when more fronthaul packets are received within a tolerated deadline. The advantages of the proposed MDC approach as compared to the traditional path diversity scheme are validated via extensive numerical results.

scholarly journals VNF Placement Optimization at the Edge and Cloud †

2019 ◽  
Vol 11 (3) ◽  
pp. 69 ◽  
Author(s):  
Aris Leivadeas ◽  
George Kesidis ◽  
Mohamed Ibnkahla ◽  
Ioannis Lambadaris
Keyword(s):  
Cloud Computing ◽  
Service Providers ◽  
Research Area ◽  
End Users ◽  
Network Function Virtualization ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Cloud Infrastructure ◽  
Network Function ◽  
Computing Paradigm ◽  
Network Functions

Network Function Virtualization (NFV) has revolutionized the way network services are offered to end users. Individual network functions are decoupled from expensive and dedicated middleboxes and are now provided as software-based virtualized entities called Virtualized Network Functions (VNFs). NFV is often complemented with the Cloud Computing paradigm to provide networking functions to enterprise customers and end-users remote from their premises. NFV along with Cloud Computing has also started to be seen in Internet of Things (IoT) platforms as a means to provide networking functions to the IoT traffic. The intermix of IoT, NFV, and Cloud technologies, however, is still in its infancy creating a rich and open future research area. To this end, in this paper, we propose a novel approach to facilitate the placement and deployment of service chained VNFs in a network cloud infrastructure that can be extended using the Mobile Edge Computing (MEC) infrastructure for accommodating mission critical and delay sensitive traffic. Our aim is to minimize the end-to-end communication delay while keeping the overall deployment cost to minimum. Results reveal that the proposed approach can significantly reduce the delay experienced, while satisfying the Service Providers’ goal of low deployment costs.

scholarly journals On Analyzing Beamforming Implementation in O-RAN 5G

Electronics ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 10 (17) ◽  
pp. 2162
Author(s):  
Mustafa Mohsin ◽  
Jordi Mongay Mongay Batalla ◽  
Evangelos Pallis ◽  
George Mastorakis ◽  
Evangelos K. Markakis ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Mobile Networks ◽  
Access Network ◽  
Zero Forcing ◽  
Radio Access Network ◽  
Main Research ◽  
Communication Environment ◽  
Research Challenges ◽  
Radio Access ◽  
Channel Information ◽  
Precoding Vector

The open radio access network (O-RAN) concept is changing the landscape of mobile networks (5G deployment and 6G research). O-RAN Alliance’s suggestions that O-RAN can offer openness and intelligence to the traditional RAN vendors will enable the capability for multi-vendors to re-shape the RAN structure and optimize the network. This paper positions the main research challenges of the O-RAN approach in regards= to the implementation of beamforming. We investigate the O-RAN architecture and the configurations of the interfaces between O-RAN units and present the split options between the radio and distributing units in terms of O-RAN specification and 3GPP standards. From this point, we discuss the beamforming methods in O-RAN, addressing challenges and potential solutions, and suggest the introduction of the zero-forcing equalizer as a precoding vector in the channel-information-based beamforming method. This may be one of the solutions for achieving flexibility in a high-traffic communication environment while reducing the radio unit interferences caused by implanting the precoding in the open radio unit.

5G: rethink mobile communications for 2020+

2016 ◽  
Vol 374 (2062) ◽  
pp. 20140432 ◽  
Author(s):  
I. Chih-Lin ◽  
Shuangfeng Han ◽  
Zhikun Xu ◽  
Qi Sun ◽  
Zhengang Pan
Keyword(s):  
Mobile Communications ◽  
Access Network ◽  
High Mobility ◽  
High Energy ◽  
Network Function Virtualization ◽  
Traffic Density ◽  
Network Function ◽  
High Data ◽  
5G Network ◽  
User Centric

The 5G network is anticipated to meet the challenging requirements of mobile traffic in the 2020s, which are characterized by super high data rate, low latency, high mobility, high energy efficiency and high traffic density. This paper provides an overview of China Mobile’s 5G vision and potential solutions. Three key characteristics of 5G are analysed, i.e. super fast, soft and green. The main 5G R&D themes are further elaborated, which include five fundamental rethinkings of the traditional design methodologies. The 5G network design considerations are also discussed, with cloud radio access network, ultra-dense network, software defined network and network function virtualization examined as key potential solutions towards a green and soft 5G network. The paradigm shift to user-centric network operation from the traditional cell-centric operation is also investigated, where the decoupled downlink and uplink, control and data, and adaptive multiple connections provide sufficient means to achieve a user-centric 5G network with ‘no more cells’. The software defined air interface is investigated under a uniform framework and can adaptively adapt the parameters to well satisfy various requirements in different 5G scenarios.

scholarly journals An Efficient Availability Guaranteed Deployment Scheme for IoT Service Chains over Fog-Core Cloud Networks

Sensors ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 18 (11) ◽  
pp. 3970 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ngoc-Thanh Dinh ◽  
Younghan Kim
Keyword(s):  
Critical Issue ◽  
High Availability ◽  
Network Function Virtualization ◽  
Cloud Networks ◽  
Protection Scheme ◽  
Network Function ◽  
Resource Limitations ◽  
Additional Protection ◽  
Cost Efficient ◽  
The Cost

High availability is one of the important requirements of many end-to-end services in the Internet of Things (IoT). This is a critical issue in network function virtualization (NFV) and NFV-enabled service function chaining (SFC) due to hard- and soft-ware failures. Thus, merely mapping primary VNFs is not enough to ensure high availability, especially for SFCs deployed over fog - core cloud networks due to resource limitations of fogs. As a result, additional protection schemes, like VNF redundancy deployments, are required to improve the availability of SFCs to meet predefined requirements. With limited resources of fog instances, a cost-efficient protection scheme is required. This paper proposes a cost-efficient availability guaranteed deployment scheme for IoT services over fog-core cloud networks based on measuring the improvement potential of VNFs for improving the availability of SFCs. In addition, various techniques for redundancy placement for VNFs at the fog layer are also presented. Obtained analysis and simulation results show that the proposed scheme achieves a significant improvement in terms of the cost efficiency and scalability compared to the state-of-the-art approaches.

scholarly journals IoT-B&B: Edge-Based NFV for IoT Devices with CPE Crowdsourcing

2018 ◽  
Vol 2018 ◽  
pp. 1-15 ◽  
Author(s):  
He Zhu ◽  
Changcheng Huang
Keyword(s):  
Resource Sharing ◽  
Traffic Load ◽  
Network Function Virtualization ◽  
Time Data ◽  
Network Function ◽  
Bed And Breakfast ◽  
Cost Efficient ◽  
Placement Algorithm ◽  
Iot Devices ◽  
Edge Based

For embracing the ubiquitous Internet-of-Things (IoT) devices, edge computing and Network Function Virtualization (NFV) have been enabled in branch offices and homes in the form of virtual Customer-Premises Equipment (vCPE). A Service Provider (SP) deploys vCPE instances as Virtual Network Functions (VNFs) on top of generic physical Customer-Premises Equipment (pCPE) to ease administration. Upon a usage surge of IoT devices at a certain part of the network, vCPU, memory, and other resource limitations of a single pCPE node make it difficult to add new services handling the high demand. In this paper, we present IoT-B&B, a novel architecture featuring resource sharing of pCPE nodes. When a pCPE node has sharable resources available, the SP will utilize its free resources as a “bed-and-breakfast” place to deploy vCPE instances in need. A placement algorithm is also presented to assign vCPE instances to a cost-efficient pCPE node. By keeping vCPE instances at the network edge, their costs of hosting are reduced. Meanwhile, the transmission latencies are maintained at acceptable levels for processing real-time data burst from IoT devices. The traffic load to the remote, centralized cloud can be substantially reduced.

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