lightMEC: A Vendor-Agnostic Platform for Multi-access Edge Computing

Multi-access Edge Computing promises to improve mobile users experience by bringing storage and processing capabilities to the edges of the network. This approach allows third parties to deploy innovative services, like augmented reality, directly in the radio access network paving the way for new business models and new revenue stream for mobile network operators (MNOs). In this paper, we introduce lightMEC a lightweight solution for deploying mobile edge computing functionalities which allows hosting of low-latency and bandwidth-intensive applications at the network edge. Measurements conducted over a real-life test demonstrated that lightMEC can actually support practical MEC applications without requiring any change to the functionality of existing mobile network nodes both in the access and the core network segments. The significant benefits of adopting the proposed architecture are analyzed based on a proof-of-concept demonstration of the content caching use case.