research-article

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FSA: fronthaul slicing architecture for 5G using dataplane programmable switches

Authors:

Nishant Budhdev,

Pravein Govindan Kannan,

Mun Choon Chan,

Tulika MitraAuthors Info & Claims

MobiCom '21: Proceedings of the 27th Annual International Conference on Mobile Computing and Networking

Pages 723 - 735

https://doi.org/10.1145/3447993.3483247

Published: 25 October 2021 Publication History

Abstract

5G networks are gaining pace in development and deployment in recent years. One of 5G's key objective is to support a variety of use cases with different Service Level Objectives (SLOs). Slicing is a key part of 5G that allows operators to provide a tailored set of resources to different use cases in order to meet their SLOs. Existing works focus on slicing in the frontend or the C-RAN. However, slicing is missing in the fronthaul network that connects the frontend to the C-RAN. This leads to over-provisioning in the fronthaul and the C-RAN, and also limits the scalability of the network.

In this paper, we design and implement Fronthaul Slicing Architecture (FSA), which to the best of our knowledge, is the first slicing architecture for the fronthaul network. FSA runs in the switch dataplane and uses information from the wireless schedule to identify the slice of a fronthaul data packet at line-rate. It enables multipoint-to-multipoint routing as well as packet prioritization to provide multiplexing gains in the fronthaul and the C-RAN, making the system more scalable. Our testbed evaluation using scaled-up LTE traces shows that FSA can support accurate multipoint-to-multipoint routing for 80 Gbps of fronthaul traffic. Further, the slice-aware packet scheduling enabled by FSA's packet prioritization reduces the 95^th percentile Flowlet Completion Times (FCT) of latency-sensitive traffic by up to 4 times.

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Cited By

Arnhold FAnbazhagan SPrade LNogueira JKlautau ABonato Both C(2024)Network Slicing Support by Fronthaul Interface in Disaggregated Radio Access Networks: A SurveyIEEE Transactions on Network and Service Management10.1109/TNSM.2024.340001921:4(4510-4530)Online publication date: Aug-2024
https://doi.org/10.1109/TNSM.2024.3400019
Khan FDiez LContreras LGil ÓSerna EGregoratti DAgüero R(2024)QoS-Aware scheduling policies for Open Fronthaul transport networks2024 IEEE International Mediterranean Conference on Communications and Networking (MeditCom)10.1109/MeditCom61057.2024.10621072(335-340)Online publication date: 8-Jul-2024
https://doi.org/10.1109/MeditCom61057.2024.10621072
Lv JGao YDing ZLin YYou XYang GDong W(2024)Providing UE-level QoS Support by Joint Scheduling and Orchestration for 5G vRANIEEE INFOCOM 2024 - IEEE Conference on Computer Communications10.1109/INFOCOM52122.2024.10621408(51-60)Online publication date: 20-May-2024
https://doi.org/10.1109/INFOCOM52122.2024.10621408
Show More Cited By

Index Terms

FSA: fronthaul slicing architecture for 5G using dataplane programmable switches
1. Networks
  1. Network components
    1. Wireless access points, base stations and infrastructure
  2. Network services
    1. Programmable networks

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cover image ACM Conferences

MobiCom '21: Proceedings of the 27th Annual International Conference on Mobile Computing and Networking

October 2021

887 pages

ISBN:9781450383424

DOI:10.1145/3447993

Copyright © 2021 Owner/Author.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution International 4.0 License.

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Published: 25 October 2021

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ACM MobiCom '21: The 27th Annual International Conference on Mobile Computing and Networking

October 25 - 29, 2021

Louisiana, New Orleans

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Cited By

Arnhold FAnbazhagan SPrade LNogueira JKlautau ABonato Both C(2024)Network Slicing Support by Fronthaul Interface in Disaggregated Radio Access Networks: A SurveyIEEE Transactions on Network and Service Management10.1109/TNSM.2024.340001921:4(4510-4530)Online publication date: Aug-2024
https://doi.org/10.1109/TNSM.2024.3400019
Khan FDiez LContreras LGil ÓSerna EGregoratti DAgüero R(2024)QoS-Aware scheduling policies for Open Fronthaul transport networks2024 IEEE International Mediterranean Conference on Communications and Networking (MeditCom)10.1109/MeditCom61057.2024.10621072(335-340)Online publication date: 8-Jul-2024
https://doi.org/10.1109/MeditCom61057.2024.10621072
Lv JGao YDing ZLin YYou XYang GDong W(2024)Providing UE-level QoS Support by Joint Scheduling and Orchestration for 5G vRANIEEE INFOCOM 2024 - IEEE Conference on Computer Communications10.1109/INFOCOM52122.2024.10621408(51-60)Online publication date: 20-May-2024
https://doi.org/10.1109/INFOCOM52122.2024.10621408
Brito JMoreno JContreras LAlvarez-Campana MBlanco Caamaño M(2023)Programmable Data Plane Applications in 5G and Beyond Architectures: A Systematic ReviewSensors10.3390/s2315695523:15(6955)Online publication date: 4-Aug-2023
https://doi.org/10.3390/s23156955
Scotece DFiandrino CFoschini L(2023)Handling Data Handoff of AI-Based Applications in Edge Computing SystemsIEEE Transactions on Network and Service Management10.1109/TNSM.2023.326794220:4(4435-4447)Online publication date: 18-Apr-2023
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1109/TNSM.2023.3267942
Koulougli DNguyen KCheriet M(2023)eCPRI Supports In 5G O-RAN Fronthaul With FlexEthernetGLOBECOM 2023 - 2023 IEEE Global Communications Conference10.1109/GLOBECOM54140.2023.10436913(1968-1973)Online publication date: 4-Dec-2023
https://doi.org/10.1109/GLOBECOM54140.2023.10436913
Paolucci FScano DCastoldi PDe Paoli E(2022)Latency control in service chaining using P4-based data plane programmabilityComputer Networks: The International Journal of Computer and Telecommunications Networking10.1016/j.comnet.2022.109227216:COnline publication date: 24-Oct-2022
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1016/j.comnet.2022.109227

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