Network Function Virtualization: Placement and Performance Optimization

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Network Functions Virtualization (NFV) along with the Network Service Chaining (SC) paradigm havechanged the way that network functions and services are deployed in the underlying network infrastructure.Network functions are now decoupled from dedicated middleboxes and can be offered as software entitiescalled Virtualized Network Functions (VNFs) that can be instantiated in industry standard servers, whilecomplete network services can be provided by deploying a series of VNFs creating a Service Chain model.This deployment model has led the Service Providers (SPs) to offer highly specialized services tailored to theneeds of end users reducing at the same time the overall capital and operational expenses. Total cost reductionshowever are typically a function of the throughput performance achieved. Hence, the goal of this proposal is toleverage the capabilities of industry standard servers and enhance their performance when hosting VNFs tomeet the high efficacy of the dedicated hardware appliances and minimize the overall deployment cost. Thebenefits of addressing this problem are the following: a) promote a "green" architecture by minimizing powerconsumption using less hardware resources, b) reduce deployment cost by installing multiple network functionson the same server c) increase the velocity of Time to Market minimizing the typical network operator cycle ofinnovation to offer new services, d) provide network services to multiple users regardless their geographicallocation by using NFV in conjunction with the Cloud Computing and Software Defined Networking (SDN)technologies e) optimize the network configuration in real time by appropriately scaling up/down the servicesaccording to the users' requirements. To this end, appropriate allocation algorithms will be proposed to optimaldeploy the VNFs of a Service Chain in a pool of standard off the shelf servers, with the goal to minimize theoverall deployment cost while maximizing the achieved throughput performance.