Demonstration of Containerized Central Unit Live Migration in 5G Radio Access Network

Abstract

The 5G Radio Access Network (RAN) architecture provides a split option, whereby a gNodeB Central Unit (gNB-CU) is connected to one or more gNB-Distributed Units (gNB- DUs). The CU is in turn connected to the 5G Core Network (CN) and its functions can be virtualized through software containers. This demonstration showcases live migration of a containerized Central Unit (CU) component in a Cloud-native 5G network without loss of service. In terms of resiliency, virtual function live migration can circumvent the failure of the server hosting the gNB-virtualized CU (gNB-vCU) that would otherwise cause an interruption of user-plane (UP) traffic and disconnection of User Equipment (UE). The proposed gNB-vCU container live migration technique reduces the end-user service temporary downtime by 50% when compared to the traditional backup/restore option.