A comprehensive survey of service function chain provisioning approaches in SDN and NFV architecture

Abstract

Network Function Virtualization (NFV) has emerged as an innovative network architecture paradigm that uses IT virtualization technology to abstract the network node functions from hardware. The virtualized network services hosted on Virtual Machines (VMs) are called Virtual Network Functions (VNFs). The sequence of multiple VNFs required by network operators to perform traffic steering is called a Service Function Chain (SFC). Software Defined Networking (SDN) is a complementary technology which allows programmatic control of network functions and policy-based resource management. The flexibility of SDN facilitates structuring of SFCs with minimum latency. SFC provisioning using SDN and NFV will enable implementation of next generation 5G networks and make the subscriber/operator relationship more economical and flexible. In this paper, a Systematic Literature Review (SLR) is used to select the high-quality research studies related to dynamic provisioning of SFCs in SDN and NFV. A total of 70 studies available in the literature are analyzed. Thereafter, a layered taxonomy is proposed to classify the literature based on the parameters of optimization approaches for the provisioning of SFCs. Finally, the open research challenges for SFC deployment are identified and discussed. This paper is intended to serve as a ready reference for the research community to develop effective and efficient techniques for SFC provisioning in combined SDN/NFV networks by considering a combination of multiple factors viz. placement of VNFs, load balancing, and availability. It will surely aid Cloud Service Providers (CSPs), Application Service Providers (ASPs), and Internet Service Providers (ISPs) in offering reliable, scalable and high-performance services to their customers.