Resilient Cloud-RANs Adopting Network Coding

Abstract

This study focuses on the provisioning of resilient Cloud Radio Access Network (C-RAN) services employing optical transport networks. In response to the high bandwidth requirements necessary for the protection of the C-RAN architecture from optical transport network and/or BBU failures, a novel approach based on Network Coding (NC) is proposed. A novel architectural and hardware framework to enable NC are also provided and a suitable implementation addressing the problem of fast NC-related operations processing at the edge is demonstrated. A global time stamping solution that can be used to address the strict synchronization requirements of FH flows arriving at the BBUs, keeping buffering at the edge as low as possible, has been developed. The performance of the proposed solution has been experimentally evaluated demonstrating negligible penalties. Network level modeling results demonstrate a reduction of the total optical network capacity required for this type of applications by 33%.