Service Function Chain Placement in Distributed Scenarios: A Systematic Review

Abstract

The network function virtualization (NFV) paradigm is an emerging technology that provides network flexibility by allowing the allocation of network functions over commodity hardware, like legacy servers in an IT infrastructure. In comparison with traditional network functions, implemented by dedicated hardware, the use of NFV reduces the operating and capital expenses and improves service deployment. In some scenarios, a complete network service can be composed of several functions, following a specific order, known as a service function chain (SFC). SFC placement is a complex task, already proved to be NP-hard. Moreover, in highly distributed scenarios, the network performance can also be impacted by other factors, such as traffic oscillations and high delays. Therefore, a given SFC placement strategy must be carefully developed to meet the network operator service constraints. In this paper, we present a systematic review of SFC placement advances in distributed scenarios. Differently from the current literature, we examine works over the last 10 years which addressed this problem while focusing on distributed scenarios. We then discuss the main scenarios where SFC placement has been deployed, as well as the several techniques used to create the placement strategies. We also present the main goals considered to create SFC placement strategies and highlight the metrics used to evaluate them.