A framework for experimental dense vRAN deployments

The advent of 5G virtualized Radio Access Networks (vRANs) brings a new challenge with regards to computer architectures. It requires to design computing technologies that provide appropriate performance while maximizing the efficiency and flexibility of networks. Several solutions were proposed relying on general-purpose processors as well as hardware accelerators. This work presents our effort to enable a dense vRAN deployment on top of these computer architectures using the 5G software stack OpenAirInterface. We describe how we adapted the software stack to leverage the capabilities of hardware and how we managed to operate many vRANs on a shared server. We also share our observations on the behavior of the computer architectures and how they affect the vRANs. We finally discuss the limitations of this work and how they can be addressed to implement better vRAN deployments.