NFEH: An SDN Framework for Containerized Network Function-enabled End Hosts

Network infrastructure operation and management are becoming increasingly complex. This complexity is a result of multi-vendor devices, distributed platforms, and the numerous protocols for control and management present in the network. Previous studies indicate that shifting network functions from the core network infrastructure to the end hosts offers network benefits and reduces the dependencies on the core infrastructure. In this research, we propose a novel framework to enable network functions on end hosts by utilizing container virtualization technologies. The lightweight and flexible nature of containers facilitate simple deployment and management while enabling application-specific intelligence to reside on the end host relieving the core network infrastructure of these complexities. To achieve this, we implement software-defined networking (SDN) concepts and technologies to enable centralized control of end-host network functions. Functional validation of the proposed framework is performed using Voice over IP (VoIP), with the Session Initiation Protocol (SIP), as the network function and the experiment results indicate that the containerized VoIP functions can operate on the end host, simplifying network management and enabling a simple network core.