Cascade Network Stability of Synchronized Traffic Load Balancing with Heterogeneous Energy Efficiency Policies

TL;DR

This paper investigates the cascade stability of synchronized load balancing in heterogeneous energy-efficient networks, establishing criteria for stability and proposing an architecture for monitoring policies in ORAN systems.

Contribution

It introduces a novel stability criterion applicable to arbitrary load dynamics and network topologies with diverse sleep mode policies in ORAN networks.

Findings

Established a general stability criterion for heterogeneous load balancing.

Proved the criterion's validity for any load dynamics and network topology.

Proposed an ORAN architecture for monitoring and ensuring cascade stability.

Abstract

Cascade stability of load balancing is critical for ensuring high efficiency service delivery and preventing undesirable handovers. In energy efficient networks that employ diverse sleep mode operations, handing over traffic to neighbouring cells' expanded coverage must be done with minimal side effects. Current research is largely concerned with designing distributed and centralized efficient load balancing policies that are locally stable. There is a major research gap in identifying large-scale cascade stability for networks with heterogeneous load balancing policies arising from diverse plug-and-play sleep mode policies in ORAN, which will cause heterogeneity in the network stability behaviour. Here, we investigate whether cells arbitrarily connected for load balancing and having an arbitrary number undergoing sleep mode can: (i) synchronize to a desirable load-balancing state, and (ii) maintain stability. For the first time, we establish the criterion for stability and prove its validity for any general load dynamics and random network topology. Whilst its general form allows all load balancing and sleep mode dynamics to be incorporated, we propose an ORAN architecture where the network service management and orchestration (SMO) must monitor new load balancing policies to ensure overall network cascade stability.