VNF Lifecycle Evaluation Study for Virtualized FeMBMS

Network Function Virtualization (NFV) is the core technology to boost the digital transformation of 5G networks. However, in order to achieve the promising agility and efficiency of networks to respond in real-time to traffic demands, the performance of virtualization systems to deploy Virtual Network Functions (VNFs) on demand is crucial. One of the most relevant new 5G paradigms is the one that brings multicast and broadcast capabilities to mobile networks, allowing overlaying the network when unicast connections are not efficient in applications that transmit the same content to multiple end-users. This technology coming from 3rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) release 14 is Further evolved Multimedia Broadcast Multicast Services (FeMBMS). The capacity of the network to deploy such FeMBMS VNF to satisfy a dense demand of popular contents in a cell means a powerful technology to ensure the Quality of Service (QoS) for a big audience while preserving available resources for concurrent unicast traffic. In this paper, based on OpenAirInterface and the virtualization of its components, we study the performance when deploying FeMBMS VNF instances in different virtualization stacks, such as softwarization of the technology through Docker, the use of Kubernetes or the addition of Open Source Mano (OSM). At the same time, the potential of virtual Radio Access Network (vRAN) is analysed as a tool for the deployment of transmission services based on FeMBMS in 3GPP ecosystems. The results address the low impact of different levels of virtualization on the inner workings of the deployed applications, as well as the potential of vRAN as a tool for the deployment of FeMBMS-based broadcast services.