A study of cloud-based VPN establishment using network function virtualization technique

Abstract

Network Function Virtualization is the process of moving networking functions like Firewall, Load Balancing, Virtual Private networks (VPN), Gateway Antivirus, etc. away from proprietary hardware to the virtual server. This paper suggests enabling VPN security features to business customers by moving VPN features away from dedicated hardware and applying the feature by instantiating the corresponding VNF template from the virtual server. This paper aspires to develop a suitable architecture model with Software-Defined Network and Network Function Virtualization as its core techniques that can render a cloud design for VPN.The proposed model consists of three parts that include forwarding plane, signaling & control plane, and data plane. The forwarding plane contains a tunnel that can be accomplished with technologies such as VPN, VXLAN, etc., and policy information. The signaling & control plane contains entire topology information, Bgp-evpn protocols, SDN controller functions, and NFV Orchestrator functions. The Data plane contains an open flow protocol and underlay network components such as distributed switch or router to handle L2-L4 rules. The model is evaluated using a simulation on a testbed with order processing and order orchestration of the cloud VPN feature.