Work

FlexUP: Breaking Up the CU-UP to Speed Up the RAN

Year: 2025

Type: conference-paper

Abstract: The Centralized Unit User Plane (CU-UP) in 5G networks works as an aggregation point of the RAN, facing increasing performance demands yet commonly limited by general-purpose processors. In this work, we present FlexUP, an architecture that offloads CU-UP functions to programmable switches and SmartNICs via a three-path abstraction: fast, medium, and slow. By matching function complexity to the appropriate hardware, FlexUP can improve latency, throughput, and resource efficiency while aligning with the modular and disaggregated principles of Open RAN (O-RAN).

DOI: 10.1145/3744969.3748447

Authors: Francisco Germano Vogt, Victor H. S. Lopes, Marcelo Caggiani Luizelli, Christian Rothenberg, Gergely Pongracz, Chrysa Papagianni

Institutions: Universidade Estadual de Campinas (UNICAMP), Universidade Federal do Pampa, University of Amsterdam

Language: English

Topic: Software-Defined Networks and 5G

Subfield: Computer Networks and Communications

Field: Computer Science

Domain: Physical Sciences

SDG: Industry, innovation and infrastructure

Open Access status: gold

Funders: Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo, Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico

Awards: SkyNet: towards smart data planes, G4317234926, G6438247056, DigiNet: towards digital-twin assisted networks, G932160542