openLEON: An End-to-End Emulator from the Edge Data Center to the Mobile Users

Abstract

To support next generation services, 5G mobile network architectures are increasingly adopting emerging technlogies like software-defined networking (SDN) and network function virtualization (NFV). Core and radio access functionalities are virtualized and executed in edge data centers, in accordance with the Multi-Access Edge Computing (MEC) principle. While testbeds are an essential research tool for experimental evaluation in such environments, the landscape of data center and mobile network testbeds is fragmented. In this work, we aim at filling this gap by presenting penLEON, an open source muLti-access Edge cOmputiNg end-to-end emulator that operates from the edge data center to the mobile users. openLEON bridges the functionalities of existing emulators for data centers and mobile networks, i.e., Mininet and srsLTE, and makes it possible to evaluate and validate research ideas on all the components of an end-to-end mobile edge architecture.