Virtualized C-RAN Orchestration with Docker, Kubernetes and OpenAirInterface

Abstract

Virtualization is a key feature in Cloud Radio Access Network (C-RAN). It can help to save costs since it allows the use of virtualized base stations instead of physically deployment in different areas. However, the creation and management of virtual base stations pools is not trivial and introduces new challenges to C-RAN deployment. This paper reports a method to orchestrate and manage a container-based C-RAN. We used several instances of the OpenAirInterface software running on Docker containers, and orchestrated them using Kubernetes. We demonstrate that using Kubernetes it is possible to dynamically scale remote radio heads (RRHs) and baseband units (BBUs) according to requirements of the network and parameters such as the server resources usage.