Service function chaining policy compliance checking

The end-to-end network services often requires various Network Functions (NFs) that provides the L4-L7 functionality. Service Function Chaining (SFC), which consists of an ordered set of NFs, and Software Defined Network (SDN), which has global view of the network and programmability, easily enable the creation of network services. However, the underlying network forwarding behaviors may be not compliant with the SFC policies. In this paper, we analyze the fundamental cause of the incompliance and propose an algorithm to check the enforcement of SFC policies. Modules and structure to implement and integrate the algorithm to a SDN network is provided. Effectiveness and performance is demonstrated in Mininet as well as a test SDN network on campus.