An Empirical Evaluation of Flow Tagging Mechanisms and Service Function Platform Choices for NFV/SFC

Abstract

In this research study, we discuss some design details of the NFV (Network Function Virtualization) architecture, especially under considerations of Softwaredefined Networking (SDN) technical supports. Two design issues of NFV/SFC are discussed in particularly: flow tagging mechanisms and service function platform choices. In the flow tagging mechanisms, we discuss three possible tagging mechanisms: mac-rewrite, VLAN ID, and MPLS label. For service function platform choices, we compare the difference between using KVM (Virtual Machine) and using Docker (Container). To investigate performance difference under different design considerations, we built a simplified NFV system. For each design issues concerned in this these work, we conducted different experiments under the simplified NFV system.