Abstract
Network Function Virtualization is based on the virtualization of the network functions and it is a new technology allowing for a more flexible allocation of cloud and bandwidth resources. In order to employ the flexibility of the technology and to adapt its use according to the traffic variation, reconfigurations of the cloud and bandwidth resources are needed by means of both migration of the Virtual Machines executing the network functions and reconfiguration of circuits interconnecting the Virtual Machines. The objective of the paper is to study the impact of the maximum number of switch reconfigurations on the cost saving that the Networking Function Virtualization technology allows us to achieve. The problem is studied in the case of a scenario with an elastic optical network interconnecting datacenters in which the Virtual Machines are executed. The problem can be formulated as an Integer Linear Programming one introducing a constraint on the maximum number of switch reconfigurations but due to its computational complexity we propose a low computational complexity heuristic allowing for results close to the optimization ones. The results show how the limitation on the number of possible reconfigurations has to be taken into account to evaluate the effectiveness in terms of cost saving that the Virtual Machine migrations in Network Function Virtualization environment allows us to achieve.
Highlights
The Network Function Virtualization (NVF) technology, [1] based on the principles of virtualization and service-orientation, has deeply changed the operation mode of the telecommunication networks [2].The NFV paradigm introduces the Service Function Chain (SFC) that is a set of Service Functions to be executed according to a given order for a traffic flow
We evaluate the effectiveness of the proposed heuristic for the networks of Figures 3–5
The main contribution of this work is the proposal of a heuristic for the evaluation of the cost saving in reconfigurable NFV/Optical environment in which the number of switch reconfigurations is limited
Summary
The Network Function Virtualization (NVF) technology, [1] based on the principles of virtualization and service-orientation, has deeply changed the operation mode of the telecommunication networks [2]. The NFV paradigm introduces the Service Function Chain (SFC) that is a set of Service Functions to be executed according to a given order for a traffic flow. The service delivery involves the allocation to the SFC of both cloud and bandwidth resources. The first ones are needed to provide memory, processing, disk resources to the Virtual Machines (VM) executing the Service Functions (SFs) and located in datacenters; the second ones are needed to interconnect VMs executing the SFs of a SFC. Some researches have been done on network planning problems in NFV environment, which mainly focused on the SFC routing and Virtual Network Function (VNF).
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