Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

Towards a Cloud-Native Radio Access Network

  • Chapter
  • First Online:
Advances in Mobile Cloud Computing and Big Data in the 5G Era

Part of the book series: Studies in Big Data ((SBD,volume 22))

Abstract

Commoditization and virtualization of wireless networks are changing the economics of mobile networks to help network providers, e.g. Mobile Network Operator (MNO), Mobile Virtual Network Operator (MVNO), move from proprietary and bespoke hardware and software platforms towards an open, cost-effective, and flexible cellular ecosystem. In addition, rich and innovative local services can be efficiently materialized through cloudification by leveraging the existing infrastructure. In this work, we present a Radio Access Network as a Service (RANaaS), in which a Cloudified Centralized Radio Access Network (C-RAN) is delivered as a service. RANaaS describes the service life-cycle of an on-demand, elastic, and pay as you go RAN instantiated on top of the cloud infrastructure. Due to short deadlines in many examples of RAN, the fluctuations of processing time, introduced by the virtualization framework, have a deep impact on the C-RAN performance. While in typical cloud environments, the deadlines of processing time cannot be guaranteed, the cloudification of C-RAN, in which signal processing runs on general purpose processors inside Virtual Machines (VMs), is a challenging subject. We describe an example of real-time cloudified LTE network deployment using the OpenAirInterface (OAI) LTE implementation and OpenStack running on commodity hardware. We also show the flexibility and performance of the platform developed. Finally, we draw general conclusions on the RANaaS provisioning problem in future 5G networks.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this chapter

Log in via an institution
Chapter
USD 29.95
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
eBook
USD 139.00
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as EPUB and PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
Softcover Book
USD 179.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Compact, lightweight edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info
Hardcover Book
USD 179.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Durable hardcover edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Institutional subscriptions

Notes

  1. 1.

    Different protocols have been standardized for the fronthaul, namely CPRI representing 4/5 of the market, OBSAI representing 1/5 of the market, and more recently the Open Radio Interface (ORI) initiated by NGMN and now by the European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI) Industry Specification Group (ISG).

  2. 2.

    http://www.kernel.org/doc/Documentation/scheduler/sched-deadline.txt.

  3. 3.

    http://www.linux-kvm.org.

  4. 4.

    http://www.xenserver.org.

  5. 5.

    http://linuxcontainers.org.

  6. 6.

    http://www.docker.com.

  7. 7.

    This rule was established empirically, because in full load conditions (i.e., all PRBs allocated in the subframe; the same MCS for all PRBs) the OAI LTE FDD TX requires 2 times less processing time than the OAI LTE FDD RX.

  8. 8.

    https://svn.eurecom.fr/openair4G/trunk/openair1/PHY/TOOLS/time_meas.h.

  9. 9.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haswell_(microarchitecture).

  10. 10.

    The CCDF plot for a given processing time value displays the fraction of subframes with execution times exceeding this value.

  11. 11.

    Micro-service architecture is in opposition to the so-called “monolithic” architecture where all functionality is offered by a single logical executable, see http://martinfowler.com/articles/microservices.html. It has to be noted that the micro-service architecture supports the ETSI NFV architecture [10], where each VNF can be seen as a service.

  12. 12.

    A cloud region is an organizational unit of the cloud containing a pool of cloud workers with specific properties such as the same configuration or geographical location.

  13. 13.

    http://www.ubuntu.com/cloud/tools/juju.

  14. 14.

    http://www.ubuntu.com/cloud/tools/maas.

  15. 15.

    Here, the work stack does not refer to Heat and should be understood as a protocol stack.

References

  1. Alyafawi, I., Schiller, E., Braun, T., Dimitrova, D., Gomes, A., Nikaein, N.: Critical issues of centralized and cloudified lte-fdd radio access networks. In: 2015 IEEE International Conference on Communications (ICC), pp. 5523–5528 (2015). doi:10.1109/ICC.2015.7249202

  2. Amari LTE 100, a Software LTE Base Station on a PC. http://www.amarisoft.com/

  3. Berardinelli, G., Ruiz de Temino, L., Frattasi, S., Rahman, M., Mogensen, P.: Ofdma vs. sc-fdma: performance comparison in local area imt-a scenarios. IEEE Wirel. Commun. 15(5), 64–72 (2008). doi:10.1109/MWC.2008.4653134

  4. Bhaumik, S., Chandrabose, S.P., Jataprolu, M.K., Kumar, G., Muralidhar, A., Polakos, P., Srinivasan, V., Woo, T.: Cloudiq: a framework for processing base stations in a data center. In: Proceedings of the 18th Annual International Conference on Mobile Computing and Networking, Mobicom ’12, pp. 125–136. ACM, New York, NY, USA (2012). doi:10.1145/2348543.2348561

  5. Chanclou, P., Pizzinat, A., Le Clech, F., Reedeker, T.L., Lagadec, Y., Saliou, F., Le Guyader, B., Guillo, L., Deniel, Q., Gosselin, S., Le, S., Diallo, T., Brenot, R., Lelarge, F., Marazzi, L., Parolari, P., Martinelli, M., O’Dull, S., Gebrewold, S., Hillerkuss, D., Leuthold, J., Gavioli, G., Galli, P.: Optical fiber solution for mobile fronthaul to achieve cloud radio access network. In: Future Network and Mobile Summit (FutureNetworkSummit) 2013, pp. 1–11 (2013)

    Google Scholar 

  6. Checko, A., Christiansen, H., Yan, Y., Scolari, L., Kardaras, G., Berger, M., Dittmann, L.: Cloud ran for mobile networks—a technology overview. IEEE Commun. Surv. Tutorials 17(1), 405–426 (2015). doi:10.1109/COMST.2014.2355255

    Article  Google Scholar 

  7. China Mobile Research Institute: C-RAN White Paper: The Road Towards Green RAN. http://labs.chinamobile.com/cran (2013)

  8. Costa-Perez, X., Swetina, J., Guo, T., Mahindra, R., Rangarajan, S.: Radio access network virtualization for future mobile carrier networks. IEEE Commun. Mag. 51(7), 27–35 (2013). doi:10.1109/MCOM.2013.6553675

    Article  Google Scholar 

  9. Dahlman, E., Parkvall, S., Skold, J.: 4G LTE/LTE-Advanced for Mobile Broadband, 1st edn. Academic Press (2011)

    Google Scholar 

  10. ETSI: Network Functions Virtualisation (NFV), White paper. Technical report, ETSI (2014)

    Google Scholar 

  11. EU FP7 Mobile Cloud Networking public deliverable D2.5: Final Overall Architecture Definition. Technical report, EU (2015)

    Google Scholar 

  12. EURECOM: Open Air Interface. http://www.openairinterface.org/

  13. Haberland, B., Derakhshan, F., Grob-Lipski, H., Klotsche, R., Rehm, W., Schefczik, P., Soellner, M.: Radio base stations in the cloud. Bell Labs Tech. J. 18(1), 129–152 (2013). doi:10.1002/bltj.21596

  14. Interworking and JOINt Design of an Open Access and Backhaul Network Architecture for Small Cells based on Cloud Networks (iJOIN): an FP7 STREP project co-funded by the European Commission. http://www.ict-ijoin.eu/

  15. Mobile Cloud Networking (MCN): an FP7 IP project co-funded by the European Commission. http://www.mobile-cloud-networking.eu

  16. NGMN: Further Study on Critical C-RAN Technologies (v0.6). Technical report, The Next Generation Mobile Networks (NGMN) Alliance (2013)

    Google Scholar 

  17. NGMN: Suggestions on Potential Solutions to C-RAN by NGMN Alliance. Technical report, The Next Generation Mobile Networks (NGMN) Alliance (2013)

    Google Scholar 

  18. Nikaein, N.: Processing radio access network functions in the cloud: critical issues and modeling. In: Proceedings of the 6th International Workshop on Mobile Cloud Computing and Services, MCS’15, pp. 36–43. ACM, New York, NY, USA (2015). doi:10.1145/2802130.2802136

  19. Nikaein, N., Knopp, R., Gauthier, L., Schiller, E., Braun, T., Pichon, D., Bonnet, C., Kaltenberger, F., Nussbaum, D.: Demo—closer to Cloud-RAN: RAN as a service. In: Proceedings of ACM MOBICOM Demonstrations (2015). doi:10.1145/2789168.2789178

  20. Nikaein, N., Knopp, R., Kaltenberger, F., Gauthier, L., Bonnet, C., Nussbaum, D., Ghaddab, R.: OpenAirInterface 4G: an open LTE network in a PC. In: Proceedings of the 20th Annual International Conference on Mobile Computing and Networking, MobiCom ’14, pp. 305–308. ACM, New York, NY, USA (2014). doi:10.1145/2639108.2641745

  21. Nikaein, N., Schiller, E., Favraud, R., Katsalis, K., Stavropoulos, D., Alyafawi, I., Zhao, Z., Braun, T., Korakis, T.: Network store: exploring slicing in future 5g networks. In: Proceedings of the 10th International Workshop on Mobility in the Evolving Internet Architecture, MobiArch’15, pp. 8–13. ACM, New York, NY, USA (2015). doi:10.1145/2795381.2795390

  22. Oracle: Oracle Cloud, Enterprise-Grade Cloud Solutions: SaaS, PaaS, and IaaS. https://cloud.oracle.com/home

  23. Patel, M., Joubert, J., Ramos, J.R., Sprecher, N., Abeta, S., Neal, A.: Mobile-Edge Computing. Technical report, ETSI, white paper (2014)

    Google Scholar 

  24. Scalable and Adaptive Internet Solutions (SAIL): an FP7 IP project co-funded by the European Commission. http://www.sail-project.eu

  25. Schooler, R.: Transforming Networks with NFV & SDN. Intel Architecture Group (2013)

    Google Scholar 

  26. Wilder, B.: Cloud Architecture Patterns. O’Reilly (2012)

    Google Scholar 

  27. Wubben, D., Rost, P., Bartelt, J., Lalam, M., Savin, V., Gorgoglione, M., Dekorsy, A., Fettweis, G.: Benefits and impact of cloud computing on 5g signal processing: flexible centralization through cloud-ran. IEEE Signal Process. Mag. 31(6), 35–44 (2014). doi:10.1109/MSP.2014.2334952

    Article  Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. EURECOM, Biot, France

    Navid Nikaein, Romain Favraud & Raymond Knopp

  2. DCNS Group, Paris, France

    Romain Favraud

  3. University of Bern, Bern, Switzerland

    Eryk Schiller, Islam Alyafawi & Torsten Braun

Authors
  1. Navid Nikaein
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Eryk Schiller
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  3. Romain Favraud
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  4. Raymond Knopp
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  5. Islam Alyafawi
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  6. Torsten Braun
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Eryk Schiller .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Computer Science, University of Nicosia, Nicosia, Cyprus

    Constandinos X. Mavromoustakis

  2. Department of Commerce and Marketing, Technological Educational Institute Crete, Crete, Greece

    George Mastorakis

  3. Department of Computer Science, University Politehnica of Bucharest, Bucharest, Romania

    Ciprian Dobre

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

© 2017 Springer International Publishing Switzerland

About this chapter

Cite this chapter

Nikaein, N., Schiller, E., Favraud, R., Knopp, R., Alyafawi, I., Braun, T. (2017). Towards a Cloud-Native Radio Access Network. In: Mavromoustakis, C., Mastorakis, G., Dobre, C. (eds) Advances in Mobile Cloud Computing and Big Data in the 5G Era. Studies in Big Data, vol 22. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-45145-9_8

Download citation

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-45145-9_8

  • Published:

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-319-45143-5

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-319-45145-9

  • eBook Packages: EngineeringEngineering (R0)

Publish with us

Policies and ethics

Search

Navigation