Interactive visualizations for management of NFV-enabled networks

Network Functions Virtualization (NFV) is driving a paradigm shift in telecommunications networks and computer networks, by fostering new business models and creating innovation opportunities. In NFV-enabled networks, service providers have the opportunity to build a business model where tenants can purchase Virtual Network Functions (VNFs) that provide distinct network services and functions (e.g., Firewall, NAT, and transcoders). However, the amount of managed data grows in a fast pace. The network operator must understand and manipulate many data to effectively manage the network. To tackle this problem, we introduce VISION, a platform based on visualizations techniques to help network operators to determine the cause of not obvious problems. For this, we provide: (i) an approach to collect and organize data from the NFV environments; (ii) five distinct visualizations that can aid in NFV management tasks, such as in the process of identifying VNFs problems and planning of NFV-enabled businesses; and (iii) a template model that supports new visualization applications. To evaluate our work, we implemented a prototype of VISION platform and each of the proposed visualizations. We then conducted distinct case studies to provide evidence of the feasibility of our visualizations. These case studies cover different scenarios, such as the identification of misplacement of VNFs that are generating bottlenecks in a forwarding graph and the investigation of investment priorities to supply tenants demands. Finally, we present a usability evaluation with network operators to indicate the benefits of the VISION platform. The results obtained show that our visualizations allow the operator to access relevant information and have insights to identify not obvious problems in the context of NFV-enabled networks. In addition, we received positive feedback about general usability aspects related to our prototype.