Interplay of Processing and Radio Parameters: A Service-Oriented Performance Study

Abstract

In this paper, we propose general service-oriented end-to-end energy and delay models. They facilitate the evaluation of new schemes, by enabling flexible allocation of processing functions at multilayer radio access network. These models describe the underlaying processing of communication function (PCF)'s complexity and the induced bandwidth. We also introduce the concept of processing interference and link it to the average PCF option of the competing users at the cloud. The proposed framework shows the possibility to compensate the delay or energy degradation, e.g., due to radio environment, by reallocating processing parameters, e.g., allocation of PCF or number of virtual central processing units (VCPUs). Several conclusions are inferred from the system's evaluation. For instance, at low modulation index (MI), the behavior of overall energy consumption is dominated by PCF energy, not the transmission energy, whereas, at high MI, the behavior of overall energy consumption is dominated by transmission energy. Centralization of PCF reduces the impact of processing interference (of competing users) on the targeted service's delay from 11 to 2 ms, and service's energy consumption from 18 to 2 J. We further evaluate the impact of PCF on the decision of offloading the service, to be computed at the cloud.