Architectural and Cost Implications of the 5G Edge NFV Systems

The recent issued 5G standard promises a comprehensive service provisioning for diverse user demands. The new challenges posed by 5G (e.g. the ultra-low latency comm-nication) urge the functionality deployment to offload from network core to edge. Besides, the various requirements of QoS guarantee cast by fast-varying services make the Net-work Function Virtualization (NFV) an essential enabler of edge network evolution. To date, the performance challenges at the newly created NFV-enabled virtual network edge are still unexplored. In this paper, we investigate the con-verged virtual Radio Access Network (RAN) and Mobile Edge Computing (MEC) in 5G era. We first outline the solo virtual RAN performance. We then characterize the collocate workloads (RAN and MEC, RAN and RAN) on the commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) edge platform. Finally, we provide brief cost comparison between traditional RAN and virtual RAN. The implications of the virtual RAN system will benefit future edge NFV design.