RANSight: Programmable Telemetry for Next-generation Open Radio Access Networks

The increasing complexity of cellular networks has resulted in dynamic network performance optimization (NPO) playing a critical role in streamlining network operations. While the success of NPO techniques primarily depends upon the quality and quantity of telemetry data available from the underlying network, up until now, third-party access to such data has been largely limited due to the prevalence of proprietary interfaces throughout the access network. However, the upcoming open radio access network (RAN) architecture is set to change this trend. While a significant first step, the open RAN architecture lacks a mechanism for the generation, collection, and exposure of RAN-level statistics in a programmable manner, thereby limiting the effectiveness of dynamic NPO. To that end, this paper introduces RANSight, a system for programmable telemetry within next-generation open RANs. Key highlights include the establishment of novel primitives for programmability within RAN telemetry, a detailed component-level description of the RANSight architecture, and the design and implementation of RANSight in support of a RAN slice monitoring use case. Furthermore, the paper also includes a comprehensive experimental evaluation on an over-the-air testbed which demonstrates that not only does RANSight fulfill its stated objectives of programmable telemetry, it also significantly improves system scalability by providing a staggering 65% reduction in compute resource utilization compared to systems without RANSight.