An Approach for Service Function Chain Orchestration in Combination with SDN-based Network

Abstract

The rapid development of network technologies and the variety of user demands make it difficult for traditional network appliances to meet the requirements in deployment and operation. Different network designs can lead to a variety in equipment requirements. In a traditional network, besides the required cost for specialized hardware and software licenses of network appliances, it takes organizations to spend more time, financial cost, and effort to get the network deployed and operated. This task is even harder in the case of devices from various vendors, which need to be compatible with each other. Hence, in this paper, we propose an alternative solution using network function virtualization (NFV) to provide a more efficient network deploying and operating mechanism. NFVs have the same capability as network devices, they can be deployed individually or in a chain along with others. Moreover, service function chain (SFC) Orchestration is also our consideration for the time-effectiveness in deploying those NFV chains. Besides, the combination of SDN-based network and SFC is used to establish the connection between virtualized network functions and end devices. We also have a prototype implementation of the proposed architecture, and then perform evaluations on deployment time of service functions and accurate operations of deployed infrastructures. In addition, attack scenarios like DoS or Web attacks are performed to assess the protection capability of security-related NFVs.