Availability Model for Data Center Networks With Dynamic Migration and Multiple Traffic Flows

Abstract

The evaluation of application availability is a crucial step in ensuring functionality of the data center network (DCN). The application of data center network is no more a chain of physical devices, but a chain of virtualized network function (VNF) dynamically installed in servers, i.e., the service function chain (SFC), due to the adaptation of network function virtualization (NFV). When dynamic migration is considered, the application availability evaluation would encounter problems since the state of VNF components is not independent. And in the application deployed in DCN, there is multiple traffic flow because of the serialization of 1+1 (active-standby) and N-way (load-sharing) redundant VNF, however only single flow is considered in current availability model. When dynamic migration and multiple traffic flows are considered, the application availability evaluation would encounter the following problems: 1) The application behavior is not described in the existing availability model; 2) The availability model could not quantify the influence of different traffic of each flow. This paper proposes an availability model, which consist of network evolution model (NEM) of DCN and the availability evaluation algorithm based on NEM (AEA-NEM), to evaluate the availability of different applications deployed on DCN. The NEM of DCN describes the dynamical process of migration and switch of three kinds of VNF (normal, 1+1 and N-way) in application, and the AEA-NEM evaluate the availability of application with multiple traffic flows. The simulation results show that, the steady state availability of the proposed model is consistent with it of generalized stochastic Petri net (GSPN) model. And the model could evaluate the application availability with dynamic migration and multiple traffic flows in DCN. Based on the current VNF placement and redundant strategy, the most available designing scheme is analyzed.