A survey on service function chaining

Cloud computing is gaining significant attention and virtualized datacenters are becoming popular as a cost-effective infrastructure. The network services are transitioning from a host-centric to a data-centric model moving the data and the computational resources closer to the end users. To meet the dynamic user demands, network operators have chosen to use elastic virtual resources to implement network services over static rigid physical model. With the advent of network function virtualization (NFV), network services instances are provisioned across multiple clouds for performance and load balancing purposes. Interconnection of these instances to form a complete end-to-end network service is complex, time consuming and expensive task. Service function chaining (SFC) is a mechanism that allows various service functions to be connected to each to form a service enabling carriers to benefit from virtualized software defined infrastructure. SFC is an enabler for NFV, providing a flexible and economical alternative to today's static environment for Cloud Service providers (CSPs), Application Service Providers (ASPs) and Internet Service Providers (ISPs). This paper provides a closer look at the current SFC architecture and a survey of the recent developments in SFC including its relevance with NFV to help determine the future research directions and the standardization efforts of SFC. Finally, the paper discusses open research topics in relevance with the SFC architecture and demonstrates a need for an analytical model for the SFC architecture to achieve the optimal performance.

[1]  Shunsuke Homma,et al.  Service Function Chaining Use Cases In Data Centers , 2017 .

[2]  Ahmed Karmouch,et al.  Resource Discovery and Allocation in Network Virtualization , 2012, IEEE Communications Surveys & Tutorials.

[3]  Shin-ichi Kuribayashi.  Optimal Joint Multiple Resource Allocation Method for Cloud Computing Environments , 2011, ArXiv.

[4]  Ian F. Akyildiz,et al.  Wireless software-defined networks (W-SDNs) and network function virtualization (NFV) for 5G cellular systems: An overview and qualitative evaluation , 2015, Comput. Networks.

[5]  Paul Hudak,et al.  Maple: simplifying SDN programming using algorithmic policies , 2013, SIGCOMM.

[6]  Jim Guichard,et al.  Service Function Chaining: Creating a Service Plane via Network Service Headers , 2014, Computer.

[7]  Tirumaleswar Reddy,et al.  Service Function Chaining (SFC) Control Plane Components & Requirements , 2016 .

[8]  Thomas D. Nadeau,et al.  Problem Statement for Service Function Chaining , 2015, RFC.

[9]  Carlos Pignataro,et al.  Service Function Chaining (SFC) Architecture , 2015, RFC.

[10]  Yan Wang,et al.  Mobileflow: Toward software-defined mobile networks , 2013, IEEE Communications Magazine.

[11]  Joseph Naor,et al.  Near optimal placement of virtual network functions , 2015, 2015 IEEE Conference on Computer Communications (INFOCOM).

[12]  Zahir Tari,et al.  Security and Privacy in Cloud Computing , 2014, IEEE Cloud Computing.

[13]  Mohammed Samaka,et al.  Multi-cloud Distribution of Virtual Functions and Dynamic Service Deployment: Open ADN Perspective , 2015, 2015 IEEE International Conference on Cloud Engineering.

[14]  Justin O'Sullivan,et al.  Towards a Precise Understanding of Service Properties , 2003, ICEIS Doctoral Consortium.

[15]  Nerea Toledo,et al.  Toward an SDN-enabled NFV architecture , 2015, IEEE Communications Magazine.

[16]  Yoav Shoham,et al.  Combinatorial Auctions , 2005, Encyclopedia of Wireless Networks.

[17]  Jerome A. Rolia,et al.  Satisfying Service Level Objectices in a Self-Managing Resource Pool , 2009, 2009 Third IEEE International Conference on Self-Adaptive and Self-Organizing Systems.

[18]  Athanasios V. Vasilakos,et al.  A Survey on Service-Oriented Network Virtualization Toward Convergence of Networking and Cloud Computing , 2012, IEEE Transactions on Network and Service Management.

[19]  Nicola Mazzocca,et al.  The dynamic placement of virtual network functions , 2014, 2014 IEEE Network Operations and Management Symposium (NOMS).

[20]  Rajkumar Buyya,et al.  Power-aware provisioning of Cloud resources for real-time services , 2009, MGC '09.

[21]  M. Stein,et al.  Network virtualization: The missing piece , 2009, 2009 13th International Conference on Intelligence in Next Generation Networks.

[22]  Min Chen,et al.  Software-Defined Network Function Virtualization: A Survey , 2015, IEEE Access.

[23]  Anat Bremler-Barr,et al.  OpenBox: Enabling Innovation in Middlebox Applications , 2015, HotMiddlebox '15.

[24]  Holger Karl,et al.  Specifying and placing chains of virtual network functions , 2014, 2014 IEEE 3rd International Conference on Cloud Networking (CloudNet).

[25]  David Hausheer,et al.  Position Paper: Software-Defined Network Service Chaining , 2014, 2014 Third European Workshop on Software Defined Networks.

[26]  Roberto Chinnici,et al.  Web Services Description Language (WSDL) Version 2.0 Part 1: Core Language , 2007 .

[27]  Raouf Boutaba,et al.  Elastic virtual network function placement , 2015, 2015 IEEE 4th International Conference on Cloud Networking (CloudNet).

[28]  David Walker,et al.  Composing Software Defined Networks , 2013, NSDI.

[29]  Didier Colle,et al.  Network service chaining with optimized network function embedding supporting service decompositions , 2015, Comput. Networks.

[30]  Hamid Farhadi,et al.  Software-Defined Networking: A survey , 2015, Comput. Networks.

[31]  Wim Henderickx,et al.  Network Service Header , 2015 .

[32]  David K. Lowenthal,et al.  Just In Time Dynamic Voltage Scaling: Exploiting Inter-Node Slack to Save Energy in MPI Programs , 2005 .

[33]  Ling Guan,et al.  Optimal resource allocation for multimedia cloud based on queuing model , 2011, 2011 IEEE 13th International Workshop on Multimedia Signal Processing.

[34]  Antonio Bucchiarone,et al.  Web Service Composition Approaches: From Industrial Standards to Formal Methods , 2007, Second International Conference on Internet and Web Applications and Services (ICIW'07).

[35]  Benjamín Barán,et al.  Multi-objective Virtual Machine Placement with Service Level Agreement: A Memetic Algorithm Approach , 2013, 2013 IEEE/ACM 6th International Conference on Utility and Cloud Computing.

[36]  Raouf Boutaba,et al.  On orchestrating virtual network functions , 2015, 2015 11th International Conference on Network and Service Management (CNSM).

[37]  Amin Vahdat,et al.  A scalable, commodity data center network architecture , 2008, SIGCOMM '08.

[38]  Ramki Krishnan,et al.  Policy Architecture and Framework for NFV Infrastructures , 2016 .

[39]  Paolo Traverso,et al.  Service-Oriented Computing: State of the Art and Research Challenges , 2007, Computer.

[40]  Peng Wang,et al.  Dynamic function composition for network service chain: Model and optimization , 2015, Comput. Networks.

[41]  Seung Ryoul Maeng,et al.  Locality-aware dynamic VM reconfiguration on MapReduce clouds , 2012, HPDC '12.

[42]  Fangzhe Chang,et al.  Optimal Resource Allocation in Clouds , 2010, 2010 IEEE 3rd International Conference on Cloud Computing.

[43]  David Hutchison,et al.  Review and Analysis of Networking Challenges in Cloud Computing , 2016, J. Netw. Comput. Appl..

[44]  Sakir Sezer,et al.  Sdn Security: A Survey , 2013, 2013 IEEE SDN for Future Networks and Services (SDN4FNS).

[45]  Serge Vaudenay,et al.  Security Flaws Induced by CBC Padding - Applications to SSL, IPSEC, WTLS , 2002, EUROCRYPT.

[46]  Meral Shirazipour,et al.  StEERING: A software-defined networking for inline service chaining , 2013, 2013 21st IEEE International Conference on Network Protocols (ICNP).

[47]  Waldemar Karwowski,et al.  Knowledge Service Engineering Handbook , 2012 .

[48]  Minyi Guo,et al.  Mechanism Design for Stochastic Virtual Resource Allocation in Non-cooperative Cloud Systems , 2011, 2011 IEEE 4th International Conference on Cloud Computing.

[49]  Nikos Parlavantzas,et al.  SLA-Based Profit Optimization in Cloud Bursting PaaS , 2014, 2014 14th IEEE/ACM International Symposium on Cluster, Cloud and Grid Computing.

[50]  Christopher Peltz.  Web Service orchestration and choreography: a look at WSCI and BPEL4WS-Feature , 2003 .

[51]  Eric Rescorla,et al.  The Transport Layer Security (TLS) Protocol Version 1.2 , 2008, RFC.

[52]  Jos de Bruijn,et al.  Web Service Modeling Ontology , 2005, Appl. Ontology.

[53]  Yuval Shavitt,et al.  Constrained mirror placement on the Internet , 2001, Proceedings IEEE INFOCOM 2001. Conference on Computer Communications. Twentieth Annual Joint Conference of the IEEE Computer and Communications Society (Cat. No.01CH37213).

[54]  Raouf Boutaba,et al.  Cloud computing: state-of-the-art and research challenges , 2010, Journal of Internet Services and Applications.

[55]  Mohammad Zulkernine,et al.  A Distributed Defense Framework for Flooding-Based DDoS Attacks , 2008, 2008 Third International Conference on Availability, Reliability and Security.

[56]  Wolfgang Kellerer,et al.  Applying NFV and SDN to LTE mobile core gateways, the functions placement problem , 2014, AllThingsCellular '14.

[57]  Aiman Majid Nassar,et al.  The Internet of Things - A Survey , 2018, مؤتمرات الآداب والعلوم الانسانية والطبيعية.

[58]  Harry T. Larson,et al.  On Whistle Blowing , 1971, Computer.

[59]  Matthias Rost,et al.  Service Chain and Virtual Network Embeddings: Approximations using Randomized Rounding , 2016, ArXiv.

[60]  Minlan Yu,et al.  SIMPLE-fying middlebox policy enforcement using SDN , 2013, SIGCOMM.

[61]  Filip De Turck,et al.  Network Function Virtualization: State-of-the-Art and Research Challenges , 2015, IEEE Communications Surveys & Tutorials.

[62]  Zhiming Wang,et al.  Enabling network function combination via service chain instantiation , 2015, Comput. Networks.

[63]  Antonio Iera,et al.  The Internet of Things: A survey , 2010, Comput. Networks.

[64]  Nick Feamster,et al.  SwitchBlade: a platform for rapid deployment of network protocols on programmable hardware , 2010, SIGCOMM '10.

[65]  Ashwin Gumaste,et al.  Models and algorithms for centralized control planes to optimize control traffic overhead , 2015, Comput. Commun..

[66]  Tamás Lukovszki,et al.  Online Admission Control and Embedding of Service Chains , 2015, SIROCCO.

[67]  Ying Lu,et al.  Efficient Power Management of Heterogeneous Soft Real-Time Clusters , 2008, 2008 Real-Time Systems Symposium.

[68]  Tamás Lukovszki,et al.  It's a Match!: Near-Optimal and Incremental Middlebox Deployment , 2016, CCRV.

[69]  Kate Ching-Ju Lin,et al.  Deploying chains of virtual network functions: On the relation between link and server usage , 2016, IEEE INFOCOM 2016 - The 35th Annual IEEE International Conference on Computer Communications.

[70]  Luciana S. Buriol,et al.  Piecing together the NFV provisioning puzzle: Efficient placement and chaining of virtual network functions , 2015, 2015 IFIP/IEEE International Symposium on Integrated Network Management (IM).

[71]  Rolf Stadler,et al.  Distributed monitoring and resource management for large cloud environments , 2011, 12th IFIP/IEEE International Symposium on Integrated Network Management (IM 2011) and Workshops.

[72]  Romain Rouvoy,et al.  A Federated Multi-cloud PaaS Infrastructure , 2012, 2012 IEEE Fifth International Conference on Cloud Computing.

[73]  Hung-Yu Wei,et al.  Dynamic Auction Mechanism for Cloud Resource Allocation , 2010, 2010 10th IEEE/ACM International Conference on Cluster, Cloud and Grid Computing.

[74]  Raouf Boutaba,et al.  A survey of network virtualization , 2010, Comput. Networks.

[75]  Xavier Hesselbach,et al.  On the complex scheduling formulation of virtual network functions over optical networks , 2014, 2014 16th International Conference on Transparent Optical Networks (ICTON).

[76]  Abdallah Shami,et al.  NFV: state of the art, challenges, and implementation in next generation mobile networks (vEPC) , 2014, IEEE Network.

[77]  Spiridon Bakiras.  Approximate server selection algorithms in content distribution networks , 2005, IEEE International Conference on Communications, 2005. ICC 2005. 2005.

[78]  Laxmana Rao Battula.  Network Security Function Virtualization(NSFV) towards Cloud computing with NFV Over Openflow infrastructure: Challenges and novel approaches , 2014, 2014 International Conference on Advances in Computing, Communications and Informatics (ICACCI).

[79]  Alan Stewart,et al.  Mapping Application Requirements to Cloud Resources , 2011, Euro-Par Workshops.

[80]  Filip De Turck,et al.  VNF-P: A model for efficient placement of virtualized network functions , 2014, 10th International Conference on Network and Service Management (CNSM) and Workshop.

[81]  Zhen Xiao,et al.  Dynamic Resource Allocation Using Virtual Machines for Cloud Computing Environment , 2013, IEEE Transactions on Parallel and Distributed Systems.

[82]  Tarik Taleb,et al.  Service-aware network function placement for efficient traffic handling in carrier cloud , 2014, 2014 IEEE Wireless Communications and Networking Conference (WCNC).

[83]  Randy H. Katz,et al.  A view of cloud computing , 2010, CACM.

[84]  Sakir Sezer,et al.  Queen ' s University Belfast-Research Portal Are We Ready for SDN ? Implementation Challenges for Software-Defined Networks , 2016 .

[85]  Aniruddha S. Gokhale,et al.  Software-Defined Networking: Challenges and research opportunities for Future Internet , 2014, Comput. Networks.

[86]  Mathieu Bouet,et al.  Cost-based placement of vDPI functions in NFV infrastructures , 2015, Proceedings of the 2015 1st IEEE Conference on Network Softwarization (NetSoft).

[87]  Shin-ichi Kuribayashi,et al.  A joint multiple resource allocation method for cloud computing environments with different QoS to users at multiple locations , 2013, 2013 IEEE Pacific Rim Conference on Communications, Computers and Signal Processing (PACRIM).

[88]  Rolf Stadler,et al.  Dynamic resource allocation with management objectives—Implementation for an OpenStack cloud , 2012, 2012 8th international conference on network and service management (cnsm) and 2012 workshop on systems virtualiztion management (svm).

[89]  C. Peltz,et al.  Web Services Orchestration and Choreography , 2003, Computer.

[90]  Thierry Turletti,et al.  A Survey of Software-Defined Networking: Past, Present, and Future of Programmable Networks , 2014, IEEE Communications Surveys & Tutorials.

[91]  Mohammed Samaka,et al.  Application delivery in multi-cloud environments using software defined networking , 2014, Comput. Networks.

[92]  Minlan Yu,et al.  Enforcing Network-Wide Policies in the Presence of Dynamic Middlebox Actions using FlowTags , 2014, NSDI.

[93]  Network Functions Virtualisation (nfv); Resiliency Requirements Group Specification , .

[94]  Abdelkader H. Ouda,et al.  Resource allocation in a network-based cloud computing environment: design challenges , 2013, IEEE Communications Magazine.

[95]  Imrich Chlamtac,et al.  Internet of things: Vision, applications and research challenges , 2012, Ad Hoc Networks.

[96]  A. Neeraja,et al.  Licensed under Creative Commons Attribution Cc by Improving Network Management with Software Defined Networking , 2022 .

[97]  Bo An,et al.  Automated negotiation with decommitment for dynamic resource allocation in cloud computing , 2010, AAMAS.

[98]  Raj Jain,et al.  OpenADN: Mobile apps on global clouds using OpenFlow and Software Defined Networking , 2012, 2012 IEEE Globecom Workshops.

[99]  Scott Shenker,et al.  Overcoming the Internet impasse through virtualization , 2005, Computer.

[100]  Hai Dong,et al.  Survey of Service Description Languages and Their Issues in Cloud Computing , 2012, 2012 Eighth International Conference on Semantics, Knowledge and Grids.

[101]  Rubén S. Montero,et al.  Dynamic placement of virtual machines for cost optimization in multi-cloud environments , 2011, 2011 International Conference on High Performance Computing & Simulation.

[102]  Roozbeh Farahbod,et al.  Dynamic Resource Allocation in Computing Clouds Using Distributed Multiple Criteria Decision Analysis , 2010, 2010 IEEE 3rd International Conference on Cloud Computing.

[103]  Massoud Pedram,et al.  Multi-dimensional SLA-Based Resource Allocation for Multi-tier Cloud Computing Systems , 2011, 2011 IEEE 4th International Conference on Cloud Computing.

[104]  Seung-Ik Lee,et al.  Resource Management in Service Chaining , 2016 .

[105]  Jim Esch,et al.  Software-Defined Networking: A Comprehensive Survey , 2015, Proc. IEEE.

[106]  Xun Wang,et al.  Resource virtualization and service selection in cloud logistics , 2013, J. Netw. Comput. Appl..

[107]  Fulvio Risso,et al.  Research Directions in Network Service Chaining , 2013, 2013 IEEE SDN for Future Networks and Services (SDN4FNS).

[108]  Eric Rescorla,et al.  SSL and TLS: Designing and Building Secure Systems , 2000 .

[109]  Norman May,et al.  Towards a Unified Service Description Language for the Internet of Services: Requirements and First Developments , 2010, 2010 IEEE International Conference on Services Computing.