A multiple flow tables construction scheme for service function chaining in NFV

Abstract

In this paper, we address the inefficient implementation of Service Function Chaining, which comes from the use of a single flow table. It is because the number of flow entries in the flow table significantly increases according to the increment of the number of service chains. So the switch should look up larger flow table to process packets, and this also makes harder to update the path of the service chains. In order to solve this problem, we propose the modified flow table construction scheme for implementing the Service Function Chaining with multiple flow tables. In our scheme, the flow entries are inserted to the corresponding flow table classified as the input ports of the switch, then they can be easily categorized and managed through the multiple flow tables. By doing this, the switch can look up only the corresponding flow table to process the packets or to update the path of the service chains. As a result, we reduce the inefficiency of the flow table construction for implementing the Service Function Chaining in the NFV.