Adaptive Reallocation of RAN Functions for Resilient 6G Networks

TL;DR

This paper introduces an adaptive RAN function reallocation mechanism to enhance resilience in 6G networks, effectively mitigating cascading failures and improving network performance during disruptions.

Contribution

It presents the first resilience approach using adaptive placement of RAN functions, formulated as an optimization problem for recovery after failures.

Findings

Recovers up to 70% higher throughput compared to traditional methods.

Effectively detects and re-instantiates RAN functions in alternative locations.

Improves service continuity during cascading failures.

Abstract

The disaggregation of base stations into discrete RAN functions introduces new threats to mobile networks, as failures in one RAN function can trigger cascading failures and disrupt the entire functional chain, impacting network performance and leading to outages. In this paper, we propose the first resilience mechanism leveraging the adaptive placement of RAN functions to mitigate disruptions and recover service continuity in the presence of compromised infrastructure. Our model detects disrupted RUs due to cascading failures, reacts by re-instantiating CU and DU in alternative cloud locations, and recovers service continuity by reestablishing functional chains. We formulate this recovery process as an optimization problem that maximizes post-failure network performance while considering computational and communication constraints of the infrastructure. We numerically evaluated our approach on a real-world mobile network topology under multiple failure scenarios, and demonstrated that our solution recovers up to 70% higher throughput compared to conventional resilience mechanisms.