Modelling and Analysis of 5G Networks Based on MEC-NFV for URLLC Services

Ultra-Reliable and Low Latency Communications (URLLC) is a Fifth Generation (5G) or Beyond(B) 5G of Mobile Networks service that presents strict reliability and latency requirements. Multi-Access Edge Computing (MEC) and Network Function Virtualization (NFV) emerge as essential solutions since they allow network applications/functions to be virtualized and hosted closer to the end-user, improving reliability and latency. However, they may incur delay overheads (e.g., resource setup delay, failure events) to the dynamic resource provisioning that may impair the URLLC, which must be considered in the MECNFV node setting. This work addresses the resource provisioning for URLLC services in MEC-NFV-based networks, considering the Virtualized Network Function (VNF) setup time, failure occurrence and resource pre-initialization. A queue-based model is proposed to analyze the MEC-NFV node configuration in terms of average response time, blocking probability, and average number of active resources, under different service arrival and resource setup rates, maximum system capacity, number of resources and pre-initialized ones are carried out. The results show that the resource pre-initialization may mitigate the negative effect of the lower VNF setup rate.