A Service-Oriented Approach for Dynamic Chaining of Virtual Network Functions over Multi-Provider Software-Defined Networks

Barbara Martini,Federica Paganelli

doi:10.3390/fi8020024

Abstract

Emerging technologies such as Software-Defined Networks (SDN) and Network Function Virtualization (NFV) promise to address cost reduction and flexibility in network operation while enabling innovative network service delivery models. However, operational network service delivery solutions still need to be developed that actually exploit these technologies, especially at the multi-provider level. Indeed, the implementation of network functions as software running over a virtualized infrastructure and provisioned on a service basis let one envisage an ecosystem of network services that are dynamically and flexibly assembled by orchestrating Virtual Network Functions even across different provider domains, thereby coping with changeable user and service requirements and context conditions. In this paper we propose an approach that adopts Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA) technology-agnostic architectural guidelines in the design of a solution for orchestrating and dynamically chaining Virtual Network Functions. We discuss how SOA, NFV, and SDN may complement each other in realizing dynamic network function chaining through service composition specification, service selection, service delivery, and placement tasks. Then, we describe the architecture of a SOA-inspired NFV orchestrator, which leverages SDN-based network control capabilities to address an effective delivery of elastic chains of Virtual Network Functions. Preliminary results of prototype implementation and testing activities are also presented. The benefits for Network Service Providers are also described that derive from the adaptive network service provisioning in a multi-provider environment through the orchestration of computing and networking services to provide end users with an enhanced service experience.

Highlights

Today’s users continuously demand interactive, content-rich, and immersive networked experiences while imposing increasingly stringent requirements on the delivery capability of the network infrastructure
We argue that the adoption of Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA) principles in the Network Function Virtualization (NFV) and Software-Defined Networks (SDN) technological landscape can ease the provision of network services that can be dynamically discovered, negotiated, and composed from different providers to meet specific user and service requirements [7,11]
We propose a service-oriented approach for the orchestration of network services deployed as a cloud of Virtual Network Functions (VNF) on top of a NFV infrastructure that takes full advantage of granular traffic steering capabilities provided by SDN

Summary

Introduction

Today’s users continuously demand interactive, content-rich, and immersive networked experiences while imposing increasingly stringent requirements on the delivery capability of the network infrastructure. Thanks to a more agile lifecycle management of virtual machines, VNFs can be instantiated, updated, deleted when and where needed, as well as dynamically combined to provide more complex capabilities on demand This allows for a strong reduction of capacity over-provisioning and for an opportunistic deployment and/or re-arrangement of VNFs to be performed, optimizing the usage of the underlying resource infrastructure toward different management targets (e.g., consolidated or balanced usage of physical servers, proximity to users). SDN decouples the software-based control plane (e.g., routing decision functions) from the hardware-based data plane (i.e., packet forwarding engine) while abstracting the underlying network infrastructure and moving the network intelligence to a centralized software-based controller where network services, such as traffic engineering and path provisioning, are deployed Such separation allows for a more agile and cost-effective network operation thanks to full programmability of forwarding capabilities and enhanced decision-making capabilities based on a global view of the network status. SDN opens the way toward a more effective interaction between applications and networks for the establishment of data delivery paths while addressing resource usage optimization and reducing the complexity of the network operation [4]

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Conclusion