SDN-based RAN Protection Solution for 5G, an Experimental Approach

In this paper, we propose a Software Defined Network-based (SDN) Passive Optical Network (PON) Radio Access Networks (RAN) protection scheme. We experimentally assess the performance by implementing it through a testbed including an SDN controller, Small form-factor pluggable transceiver PON (SFP+/PON), a layer 2 switch, and several SFP+ Point-to-Point (SFP+/PtP) in lieu of a traditional OLT chassis. We compared our proposition with a PtP scheme based on legacy layer 2 redundancy protocol solution with respect to different metrics such as recovery time, latency, power consumption, CAPEX and flexibility/scalability. We show that a trade-off exists among those metrics and that while the SDN-based solution is outperformed by the legacy-based one in terms of recovery time, the proposed solution still provides a remarkable improvement with respect to nowadays practices in protection, while allowing for cost and energy reduction. Such solution scheme can thus be used as a protection scheme for non-time-critical services.