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Enabling Real-Time Programmability for RAN Functions: A Wasm-Based Approach for Robust and High-Performance dApps

João Paulo Esper, Yure Freitas, Pedro Souza, Bruno Silvestre, Joao F. Santos, Alexandre Huff, Cristiano Both, Kleber Cardoso

Abstract

While the Open Radio Access Network Alliance (O-RAN) architecture enables third-party applications to optimize radio access networks at multiple timescales, real-time distributed applications (dApps) that demand low latency, high performance, and strong isolation remain underexplored. Existing approaches propose colocating a new RAN Intelligent Controller (RIC) at the edge, or deploying dApps in bare metal along with RAN functions. While the former approach increases network complexity and requires additional edge computing resources, the latter raises serious security concerns due to the lack of native mechanisms to isolate dApps and RAN functions. Meanwhile, WebAssembly (Wasm) has emerged as a lightweight, fast technology for robust execution of external, untrusted code. In this work, we propose a new approach to executing dApps using Wasm to isolate applications in real-time in O-RAN. Results show that our lightweight and robust approach ensures predictable, deterministic performance, strong isolation, and low latency, enabling real-time control loops.

Enabling Real-Time Programmability for RAN Functions: A Wasm-Based Approach for Robust and High-Performance dApps

Abstract

While the Open Radio Access Network Alliance (O-RAN) architecture enables third-party applications to optimize radio access networks at multiple timescales, real-time distributed applications (dApps) that demand low latency, high performance, and strong isolation remain underexplored. Existing approaches propose colocating a new RAN Intelligent Controller (RIC) at the edge, or deploying dApps in bare metal along with RAN functions. While the former approach increases network complexity and requires additional edge computing resources, the latter raises serious security concerns due to the lack of native mechanisms to isolate dApps and RAN functions. Meanwhile, WebAssembly (Wasm) has emerged as a lightweight, fast technology for robust execution of external, untrusted code. In this work, we propose a new approach to executing dApps using Wasm to isolate applications in real-time in O-RAN. Results show that our lightweight and robust approach ensures predictable, deterministic performance, strong isolation, and low latency, enabling real-time control loops.
Paper Structure (13 sections, 5 figures, 1 table)

This paper contains 13 sections, 5 figures, 1 table.

Table of Contents

  1. Introduction
  2. Background and related work
  3. dApp Isolation through the Wasm Sandbox
  4. Wasm Architecture and Operation
  5. Opportunities for Wasm in O-RAN
  6. dApps as Wasm Modules
  7. Prototyping Wasm-based dApps
  8. Experimental Results
  9. Experimental Setup
  10. dApp Isolation through Wasm
  11. Control Loop Latency
  12. Computational Footprint
  13. Conclusions and Open Challenges

Figures (5)

  • Figure 1: Without mechanisms to ensure robust operation of third-party applications in O-RAN, failures or misbehavior in a single application can compromise not only an individual RAN function but the entire chain of dependent functions.
  • Figure 2: Our architecture to secure the operation of dApps deployed on the RAN functions, leveraging Wasm to provide isolation and deterministic performance, while running on top of existing frameworks for creating dApps.
  • Figure 3: Experiment demonstrating dApps under normal conditions (Phase 1), how misbehaving dApps can compromise the operation of other dApps and their real-time control loops (Phase 2), and the effect of Wasm's fine-grain isolation ensuring predictable performance for dApps (Phase 3).
  • Figure 4: Control loop latency for a dApp running in baremetal, in a container, and in Wasm across 10 independent experiments, demonstrating the trade-off between isolation and additional virtualization overhead.
  • Figure 5: Comparison of the computational footprint for a dApp running in baremetal, in a container, and in Wasm in terms of processing and memory utilization across 10 independent experiments. The CPU utilization percentage refers to the usage of a single core.