Abstract
As the size and service requirements of today’s networks gradually increase, large numbers of proprietary devices are deployed, which leads to network complexity, information security crises and makes network service and service provider management increasingly difficult. Network function virtualization (NFV) technology is one solution to this problem. NFV separates network functions from hardware and deploys them as software on a common server. NFV can be used to improve service flexibility and isolate the services provided for each user, thus guaranteeing the security of user data. Therefore, the use of NFV technology includes many problems worth studying. For example, when there is a free choice of network path, one problem is how to choose a service function chain (SFC) that both meets the requirements and offers the service provider maximum profit. Most existing solutions are heuristic algorithms with high time efficiency, or integer linear programming (ILP) algorithms with high accuracy. It’s necessary to design an algorithm that symmetrically considers both time efficiency and accuracy. In this paper, we propose the Q-learning Framework Hybrid Module algorithm (QLFHM), which includes reinforcement learning to solve this SFC deployment problem in dynamic networks. The reinforcement learning module in QLFHM is responsible for the output of alternative paths, while the load balancing module in QLFHM is responsible for picking the optimal solution from them. The results of a comparison simulation experiment on a dynamic network topology show that the proposed algorithm can output the approximate optimal solution in a relatively short time while also considering the network load balance. Thus, it achieves the goal of maximizing the benefit to the service provider.
Highlights
Most networks use a large number of dedicated hardware devices that provide features such as firewalls and network address translation (NAT)
Using network function virtualization (NFV) technology, we can use virtual network functions (VNFs) [10] to represent network services deployed on continuous network topology nodes to form a service function chain (SFC) [11]
Related Work In NFV networks, network functions are implemented as VNFs in software form
Summary
Jian Sun 1 , Guanhua Huang 1 , Gang Sun 1,2, * , Hongfang Yu 1,2 , Arun Kumar Sangaiah 3. Key Lab of Optical Fiber Sensing and Communications (Ministry of Education), University of Electronic. Received: 12 October 2018; Accepted: 14 November 2018; Published: 16 November 2018
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