A Framework for Energy Efficient NFV in 5G Networks

Several critical benefits are encompassed by the concept of NFV when this concept is brought under the roof of 5G such as scalability, high level of flexibility, efficient utilisation of network resources, cost and power reduction, and on demand allocation of network resources. NFV could reduce the cost for installing and maintaining network equipment through consolidating the hardware resources. By deploying NFV, network resources could be shared between different users and several network functions in a facile and flexible way. Beside this the network resources could be rescaled and allocated to each function in the network. As a result, the NFV can be customised according the precise demands, so that all the network components and users could be handled and accommodated efficiently. In this paper we extend the virtualization framework that was introduced in our previous work to include a large range of virtual machine workloads with the presence of mobile core network virtual machine intra communication. In addition, we investigate a wide range of traffic reduction factors which are caused by base band virtual machines (BBUVM) and their effect on the power consumption. We used two general scenarios to group our finding, the first one is virtualization in both IP over WDM (core network) and GPON (access network) while the second one is only in IP over WDM network (core network). We illustrate that the virtualization in IP over WDM and GPON can achieve power saving around (16.5% – 19.5%) for all cases for all cases compared to the case where no NFV is deployed, while the virtualization in IP over WDM records around (13.5% – 16.5%)

Experimental Evaluation of Passive Optical Network Based Data Centre Architecture

Passive optical networks (PON) technology is increasingly becoming an attractive solution in modern data centres as it provides energy efficient, high capacity, low cost, scalable and flexible connectivity. In this paper we report the implementation of a PON based data centre architecture that provides high resilience and high speed interconnections by providing alternative communication routes between servers in different racks. Each rack is divided into several groups of servers and connects to other racks and the Optical Line Terminal (OLT) through a set of server that acts as relay servers. We implement the switching and routing functionalities within servers using 4×10GE Xilinx NetFPGA, and demonstrate end-to-end communication using IP cameras live video streaming over up to 100 km optical connections through WDM nodes and the PON network

Energy Efficient virtualization framework for 5G F-RAN

Fog radio access network (F-RAN) and virtualisation are promising technologies for 5G networks. In F-RAN, the fog and cloud computing are integrated where the conventional C-RAN functions are diverged to the edge devices of radio access networks. F-RAN is adopted to mitigate the burden of front-haul and improve the end to end (E2E) latency. On other hand, virtualization and network function virtualization (NFV) are IT techniques that aim to convert the functions from hardware to software based functions. Many merits could be brought by the employment of NFV in mobile networks including a high degree of reliability, flexibility and energy efficiency. In this paper, a virtualization framework is introduced for F-RAN to improve the energy efficiency in 5G networks. In this framework, a gigabit passive optical network (GPON) is leveraged as a backbone network for the proposed F-RAN architecture where it connects several evolved nodes B (eNodeBs) via fibre cables. The energy-efficiency of the proposed F-RAN architecture has been investigated and compared with the conventional C-RAN architecture in two different scenarios using mixed integer linear programming (MILP) models. The MILP results indicate that on average a 30% power saving can be achieved by the F-RAN architecture compared with the C-RAN architecture

Experimental Evaluation of Server Centric Passive Optical Network Based Data Centre Architecture

Passive optical networks (PON) technology has recently been proposed as a solution for scalability, energy efficiency, high capacity, low cost, flexibility and oversubscription issues in data centres. This paper experimentally demonstrates and discusses the implementation of a server centric PON based data centre architecture with high speed and reliability. The architecture is set up using a set of servers grouped into racks directly connected together and to the Optical Line Terminal (OLT) through gateway servers. The switching and routing functionalities have been embedded into servers using 4x10GE Xilinx NetFPGA. Flow continuity has been observed through live video streaming using IP cameras transmitting over up to 110 km optical connections through WDM nodes and the PON network

Evaluation of Applications Latency in Server Centric Passive Optical Network Based Data Centre Architectures

The number of applications running in the cloud has dramatically increased in the past decade as well as the number of users accessing them. Data centres resources, architectures and conditions define the performance of the applications running on them. One of the main measures of the network efficiency is the latency, which can have a huge effect on resources utilisation, power consumption and the overall performance. In this paper, the performance of a fog network is evaluated by measuring the latency while running a facial recognition software. The network consists of two processing cells, a core network and a PON cell. The results show how network latency is affected by running the facial recognition software in the end-to-end network setup introduced in this paper