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Joint Optimization of Edge Computing Architectures and Radio Access Networks

2018; Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers; Volume: 36; Issue: 11 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1109/jsac.2018.2874142

1558-0008

Andrés García‐Saavedra, George Iosifidis, Xavier Costa‐Pérez, Douglas J. Leith,

Advanced Wireless Communication Technologies

Virtualized radio access network (vRAN) architectures and multiple-access edge computing (MEC) systems constitute two key solutions for the emerging Tactile Internet applications and the increasing mobile data traffic. Their efficient deployment, however, requires a careful design tailored to the available network resources and user demand. In this paper, we propose a novel modeling approach and a rigorous analytical framework, MEC-vRAN joint design problem (MvRAN), that minimizes vRAN costs and maximizes MEC performance. Our framework selects jointly the base-station function splits, the fronthaul routing paths, and the placement of MEC functions. We follow a data-driven evaluation method, using topologies of three operational networks and experiments with a typical face-recognition MEC service. Our results reveal that MvRAN achieves significant cost savings (up to 2.5 times) compared to non-optimized centralized RAN or decentralized RAN systems, and MEC pushes the vRAN functions to radio units and hence can increase substantially the network cost.