Dynamic Resource Provisioning and Resource Customization for Mixed Traffics in Virtualized Radio Access Network

• Published in: IEEE access 2019, Vol.7, p.115440-115453
• Main Authors: Xiong, Kun, Samuel Rene Adolphe, Sebakara, Boateng, Gordon Owusu, Liu, Guisong, Sun, Guolin
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Algorithms; Customization; Heuristic methods; Network slicing; Provisioning; Radio equipment; Resource allocation; resource provisioning; Resource utilization; Substrates; user association; User satisfaction
• ISSN: 2169-3536; 2169-3536
• DOI: 10.1109/ACCESS.2019.2935606

The fifth generation (5G) wireless technology is envisioned to support different applications or services on a common substrate infrastructure. To achieve this objective, network virtualization is needed to partition the physical network into various network slices with each slice providing a unique service in the network. In networks with mixed traffics, service operators are required to provide services in isolation since each service has its own defined objective. In such mixed traffics, achieving an efficient and effective resource allocation is a challenging issue. In this paper, we propose a dynamic resource provisioning scheme involving mixed traffics with multiple base stations in a virtualized radio access network. Since users in each slice have varying requirements on satisfaction regarding the delay and data rate, we propose a customized shape-based heuristic algorithm for users to improve resource utilization and QoS fulfilment. The comprehensive system-level simulation is conducted based on OFDMA air-interface design. Simulation results show that the proposed algorithm outperforms baseline algorithms in terms of QoS satisfaction and resource utilization.