Architecture for Virtual Network Function's High Availability in Hybrid Cloud Infrastructure

Abstract

Currently, using Container technology to host network functions can leverage faster Virtual Network Function (VNF) installation and optimize resource utilization than Virtual Machine (VM) based virtualization technology. However, due to the limitation in security and performance, migrating all network functions to Container platform might not be the right solution. Considering trade-offs between agility, security and compatibility leads to the hybrid deployment of VNFs, where some legacy or secured VNFs are placed in VMs and redesigned VNFs with microservice architecture are deployed in Containers. The hybrid cloud infrastructure that supports VM as well as Container based VNFs also raises the unified networking, management and orchestration problems, as well as network service availability problems due to incompatible orchestration. In order to solve the above issues, we design a conversion translator, unified lifecycle management (LCM) of network service and networking integration. Finally, we also develop a procedure for heterogeneous network service chaining. To verify it, we implement the proposed architecture with OpenStack and Kubernetes environments. We aim to demonstrate the feasibility of our proposed architecture in supporting HA alongside resolving orchestration issues in a hybrid cloud.