ICE-T:RC: Accelerating NFV Service Function Chain Processing at Scale

网络功能虚拟化(NFV)与软件定义网络(SDN)相结合，有望给网络带来革命性的变化。运营商可以按需创建、更新或扩展/引入(虚拟)网络功能，构建一系列网络功能以形成服务功能链(SFC)，并引导流量通过它以满足各种策略和服务需求。在新兴的第五代(5G)蜂窝网络技术中，NFV将成为支持动态网络切片和多种服务的关键使能技术，范围从增强的移动宽带到海量机器类型的通信和超可靠的低延迟通信。本项目提出了一种新型的分布式并行化框架，称为HydraNF，用于在规模上加速NFV服务功能链的处理。HydraNF将通过充分利用多核服务器群集进行动态和弹性横向扩展，同时应对NFV大规模部署中的性能和自动扩展挑战。拟议的项目考虑了扩展和加速NFV服务链的问题，利用服务器上的多核以及群集中的多个服务器之间的并行性。该项目是在5G蜂窝服务和未来5G网络设想的云无线电接入网络、移动边缘云和分组核心的背景下制定的。项目团队将设计一个名为HydraNF的框架，并研究1)VNF行为模型和SFC规范，2)SFC分解、图形构建和映射、布局和规则生成的控制器，3)数据平面引擎，以及4)在欧洲合作者的5G试验台内的实施、评估和集成。这是一个与明尼苏达大学、西班牙马德里卡洛斯三世大学(UC3M)和IMDEA网络研究所合作的研究项目。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力优势和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

Network Function Virtualization (NFV), coupled with Software Defined Networking (SDN), promises to revolutionize networking. Operators can create, update or scale out/in (virtualized) network functions (vNFs) on demand, construct a sequence of vNFs to form a service function chain (SFC) and steer traffic through it to meet various policy and service requirements. In emerging 5th Generation (5G) cellular networking technologies, NFV will be a key enabling technology for support of dynamic network slicing and diverse services ranging from enhanced mobile broadband to massive machine type communications and ultra-reliable low latency communications.This project advances a novel distributed parallelization framework, dubbed HydraNF, for accelerating NFV service function chain processing at scale. HydraNF will be designed to simultaneously tackle the performance and auto-scaling challenges in large scale deployment of NFV by taking full advantage of a cluster of multi-core servers for dynamic and elastic scale-out. The proposed project considers the problem of scaling and accelerating NFV service chains leveraging parallelism across multi-cores on a server as well as across multiple servers in a cluster. The project is framed within the context of 5G cellular service and the intended cloud radio access network, mobile edge clouds, and packet cores that are envisioned for future 5G networks. The project team will design a framework, called HydraNF, and study 1) models for VNF behaviors and SFC specification, 2) a controller for SFC decomposition, graph construction and mapping, placement and rule generation, 3) a data plane engine, and 4) the implementation, evaluation and integration within the European collaborator's 5G testbed. This is a collaborative research project with the University of Minnesota and the Universidad Carlos III de Madrid (UC3M) and IMDEA Networks Institute in Madrid, Spain.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.