PCPV: Pattern-based Cost-efficient Proactive VNF placement and chaining for value-added services in content delivery networks

Value-added services (VASs) are an integral part of todays Content Delivery Networks (CDNs). They can be implemented as a chain of Virtual Network Functions (VNFs). These chains need to be placed in an efficient way in CDNs in order to optimize quality of service (QoS) for end-users(EUs) while minimizing cost for providers. We formulate the problem as an Integer Linear Program (ILP) and propose a Pattern-based Cost-efficient Proactive VNF placement and chaining (PCPV) algorithm. The objective is to find the optimal number, location and chaining of VNFs in such a manner that the cost is minimized while QoS is met. Apart from cost minimization, the support for large-scale CDNs with a large number of physical machines (servers) and EUs is an important feature of the proposed algorithm. Through simulations, the algorithm behavior for small-scale to large scale CDN networks is analyzed.