Network function virtualization and service function chaining frameworks: a comprehensive review of requirements, objectives, implementations, and open research challenges

Adoga, H. U. and Pezaros, D. P. (2022) Network function virtualization and service function chaining frameworks: a comprehensive review of requirements, objectives, implementations, and open research challenges. Future Internet, 14(2), 59. (doi: 10.3390/fi14020059)

Abstract

Network slicing has become a fundamental property for next-generation networks, especially because an inherent part of 5G standardisation is the ability for service providers to migrate some or all of their network services to a virtual network infrastructure, thereby reducing both capital and operational costs. With network function virtualisation (NFV), network functions (NFs) such as firewalls, traffic load balancers, content filters, and intrusion detection systems (IDS) are either instantiated on virtual machines (VMs) or lightweight containers, often chained together to create a service function chain (SFC). In this work, we review the state-of-the-art NFV and SFC implementation frameworks and present a taxonomy of the current proposals. Our taxonomy comprises three major categories based on the primary objectives of each of the surveyed frameworks: (1) resource allocation and service orchestration, (2) performance tuning, and (3) resilience and fault recovery. We also identify some key open research challenges that require further exploration by the research community to achieve scalable, resilient, and high-performance NFV/SFC deployments in next-generation networks.

• Item Type: Articles
• Additional Information: This work was supported in part by the UK Engineering and Physical Sciences Research 1312 Council (EPSRC) grant EP/N033957/1, the PETRAS National Centre of Excellence for IoT Systems 1313 Cybersecurity, which has been funded by the UK EPSRC under grant number EP/S035362/1 and the 1314 Petroleum Technology Development Fund (PTDF) grant 1563/19.
• Status: Published
• Refereed: Yes
• Glasgow Author(s) Enlighten ID: Adoga, Mr Haruna Umar and Pezaros, Professor Dimitrios
• Authors: Adoga, H. U., and Pezaros, D. P.
• College/School: College of Science and Engineering > School of Computing Science
• Journal Name: Future Internet
• Publisher: MDPI
• ISSN: 1999-5903
• ISSN (Online): 1999-5903
• Published Online: 15 February 2022
• Copyright Holders: Copyright © 2022 The Authors
• First Published: First published in Future Internet 14(2): 59
• Publisher Policy: Reproduced under a Creative Commons licence

Project Code	Award No	Project Name	Principal Investigator	Funder's Name	Funder Ref	Lead Dept
172888		Network Measurement as a Service (MaaS)	Dimitrios Pezaros	Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC)	EP/N033957/1	Computing Science