Preliminary observations on 5G vitality effectivity measurements

Editor’s observe: This text is a follow-on to “5G Power Effectivity Metrics, Fashions and Techniques Assessments” which was revealed by RCR Wi-fi Information on August 28, 2024

Introduction

The Aether SMaRT-5G initiative (initially began by the Open Networking Basis     (ONF)), is concentrated on analysis and growth of progressive vitality measurements and modeling for 5G cell networks. The mission additionally consists of demonstration and validation of superior vitality financial savings strategies in collaboration with a multi-vendor/operator ecosystem. 

The Nationwide Telecommunications and Info Administration (NTIA) of the US Division of Commerce has been supporting the SMaRT-5G initiative with a analysis grant by way of their Public Wi-fi Provide Chain Innovation Fund (PWSCIF).  The $2M grant is funding SMaRT-5G in collaboration with Rutgers College’s WINLAB to analysis, develop, and validate correct and efficient check strategies and to create metrics and fashions to measure the vitality effectivity of 5G community elements in addition to the effectiveness of end-to-end Open RAN based mostly vitality optimization methods.

The platform we have now created for this objective is known as POET: Platform for O-RAN Power Effectivity Testing. Particulars of POET may be present in a beforehand revealed RCR Wi-fi article. 

We have now adopted totally different approaches for energy measurement, which is the primary and essentially the most elementary step within the mission. Simply to recap, we use a multi-pronged method for this objective.

(a) PDU: The ability, present, voltage equipped to PNFs and servers is obtained by usually querying the Energy Distribution Items (PDUs) (nominally each 15 secs), and exporting this knowledge to Prometheus/Grafana. This offers a important ground-truth measurement of energy consumption.

(b) IPMI: Energy and surroundings variables reported by the servers are additionally monitored utilizing the Clever Platform Administration Interface (IPMI). Queries are made to the server Baseboard Administration Controller (BMC) and exported to Prometheus/Grafana.

(c) Scaphandre: We deployed the Scaphandre open-source vitality monitoring performance on bare-metal servers operating CU/DU software program. Scaphandre measures course of utilization (based mostly on Intel Working Common Energy Restrict (RAPL)) and estimates the facility consumption utilizing an estimation mannequin.

(d) Kepler: The Kubernetes deployment within the testbed makes use of Kepler exporters on every server sending energy metrics to Prometheus/Grafana. Kepler is an open-source vitality monitoring performance for Kubernetes methods. It measures node and container utilization (based mostly on Intel RAPL) and estimates the facility consumption utilizing an estimation mannequin. 

Although PDU offers the bottom fact by way of vitality consumption, deploying PDUs in a community and accumulating knowledge is dear and laborious. Moreover, complete vitality consumption alone is inadequate to realize the specified targets of vitality administration efforts, therefore granular and detailed vitality consumption measurements are required. As an example, when a disaggregated RAN (such because the O-RAN structure) is taken into account, it is very important understand how vitality is consumed as a operate of visitors load by RU, CU, DU and Core, together with infrastructure overhead which homes digital community capabilities.  Subsequently, if O-RAN interfaces can present vitality consumption info with adequate particulars and granularity, from which numerous vitality effectivity KPIs may be derived, that may be ultimate.

Nevertheless, the present scope of O-RAN interfaces is insufficient for this objective, and we have now to depend on different possible and economical approaches to complement O-RAN interfaces, to start with. Bearing this in thoughts, different approaches like IPMI, Scaphandre, and Kepler are extremely related, and correlating knowledge collected by way of these strategies is essential.  Efforts are actually underway to gather and analyze knowledge from POET alongside these strains. Preliminary outcomes have been lately revealed as a technical paper and introduced on the RitiRAN convention by mission members from the Linux Basis’s Aether SMaRT-5G mission in collaboration with WINLAB and Cognizant. This text summarizes the important thing ends in the paper.

5G community vitality consumption – key observations

We have now noticed that PDU and IPMI readings monitor effectively, and PDU readings usually range round 5% above IPMI readings, relying on the load. Thus, IPMI readings may be calibrated to estimate PDU readings. That is precious within the context of vitality consumption of cloudified and virtualized community capabilities. Additionally it is noteworthy that IPMI readings are quantized the place the readings are reported in steps, whereas PDU readings are steady. This must also be thought-about within the calibration/modelling efforts.

We used Kepler to get vitality consumption of Kubernetes containers/pods, as an try to measure the vitality consumed by Cloudified Community Features (CNFs). Kepler makes use of fashions based mostly on CPU utilization to estimate vitality consumption, and the fashions can range for various CPU/server households which may be tweaked to enhance estimation accuracy.  The present outcomes are through the use of open-source Kepler fashions (as-is) and we plan to review strategies to enhance accuracy of fashions. Understandably, Kepler readings are considerably beneath PDU/IPMI readings since they don’t seize non-CPU-related vitality consumption, which must be modelled and calibrated. Nonetheless, we noticed that Kepler readings monitor the PDU and IPMI readings fairly effectively, with respect to complete vitality consumption. 

It is very important see how the vitality consumption is for numerous digital community capabilities, specifically Core, CU and DU, as reported by Kepler. We did some TCP exams, first with one UE after which with two UEs.  We made the next observations:

1. The ability consumption of the 5G Core, O-CU, and O-DU in a Kubernetes deployment may be individually estimated utilizing Kepler. The whole consumption of the Core NF, and CU and DU containers are solely part of the vitality consumption of the overall O-RAN system as a consequence of vital vitality consumption from different Kubernetes system capabilities.

2. The impact of load with respect to vitality consumption is essentially the most on DU versus Core and CU.

We additionally seemed on the vitality consumption reported by Scaphandre (naked metallic), and in contrast it with Kepler, PDU, and IPMI readings. Particularly, we used Scaphandre to get vitality consumption of O-RAN NF (OAI) and different processes. Additionally, like Kepler, Scaphandre additionally makes use of fashions to estimate vitality consumption based mostly on CPU utilization, and we plan to review strategies to enhance the accuracy of fashions.

Our key observations are summarized beneath:

1. Scaphandre readings tracks effectively with respect to Kepler, PDU and IPMI readings

2. The ability consumption of the OAI O-RAN system might be individually estimated utilizing Scaphandre. The whole consumption of the OAI O-RAN system is considerably beneath PDU/IPMI readings because the Scaphandre estimates don’t seize non-CPU associated vitality consumption, which must be modelled and calibrated

Efficiency measurements

One essential purpose for this R&D effort is to correlate vitality consumption to community efficiency and to derive KPIs, connecting each these elements. Subsequently, efficiency measurements are additionally essential on this context. We have now been adopting numerous approaches for this objective, corresponding to:

1. Finish-to-end measurements (for instance, knowledge volumes and throughput)

2. O1-based KPIs (we used the telnet-based OAI DU O1 answer to get uplink/downlink throughput, and downlink PRB load and anticipate extra help for O1 in future exams).

3. E2-based KPIs (A number of KPIs accessible over E2 interface, e.g. E2-SM KPM)

Subsequent steps

POET is operational now, and preliminary observations point out that IPMI is a helpful estimate for complete server vitality consumption, whereas Kepler, Scaphandre are promising instruments for O-Cloud VNF/CNF energy estimates. At present, the workforce is within the technique of calibrating numerous outcomes, augmenting RU energy measurements utilizing business RUs, and correlating energy consumption measurements with efficiency measurements to develop energy consumption KPIs and fashions. As well as, dialogue with different labs is underway, particularly ones funded by NTIA (corresponding to ORCID and ACCoRD), with the objective of increasing experiments and getting nearer to real-life community deployment eventualities.

Register to attend the digital Telco Sustainability Discussion board, hosted by RCR Wi-fi Information on December tenth. Sarat Puthenpura will probably be taking part in a full of life panel dialogue “From the core to the RAN – make networks extra sustainable”. 

Concerning the writer

Sarat Puthenpura, Ph.D., is the Chief Architect – Open RAN, SMaRT-5G and Aether initiatives hosted by the Linux Basis. He has over 35 years of expertise within the trade spanning the appliance of mathematical optimization and synthetic intelligence/machine studying strategies in telecommunications community planning, useful resource optimization, operations automation, and efficiency administration with management in R&D, software program growth and deployment in these areas. He’s the inventor of a number of applied sciences together with elementary technical contributions in these fields with 86 patents, 40 papers, and a graduate stage textbook, and recipient of the AT&T Science and Expertise Medal.