Traffic-aware Live Migration in Virtualized CPE Scenarios

Abstract

Virtual Customer Premises Equipments (vCPE) are one of the most prominent use cases enabled by the combined usage of Software Defined Networking (SDN) and Network Function Virtualization (NFV), bringing among others significant flexibility and agility in the way services are delivered. This paper proposes a framework architecture to enable CPE virtualization (i.e., vCPE) in centralized or edge data-centres, considering user traffic requirements. In light of this, our framework leverages SDN, NFV, and Management and Orchestration (MANO) mechanisms to periodically monitor the user traffic in the vCPE, and to dynamically instantiate and migrate the vCPE on the basis of such data requirements. The framework was implemented and experimentally evaluated in full and ultra High-Definition live streaming scenarios, where the vCPE migration presented near-zero downtime and did not negatively impact the quality of experience of end-users.