Resilient orchestration of Service Functions Chains in a NFV environment

Abstract

Service Function Chaining (SFC) defines the concept of linking ordered Service Functions (SFs) through network technologies to support specific application requirements. SFC exploits Software Defined Networking (SDN) and Network Function Virtualization (NFV) technologies to achieve the creation, modification and deletion of SFC in a cost efficient and rapid way. However, during the runtime phase, SFs are exposed to the risk of failures, which results in an end-to-end failure at the application level. For this reason, this paper introduces the concept of a resilient SFC Orchestrator capable of deploying SF Chains following the ETSI NFV architectural model, as well as controlling the runtime phase rerouting the traffic to a different path in case of appearing faults. Furthermore, the concept is exemplified as an addition to the current NFV architecture and evaluated in a NFV environment making use of the Fraunhofer FOKUS Open Baton toolkit in an OpenStack and OpenDayLight based environment. Finally, the measured results show that the Service Function Path (SFP), and therefore their provided services, can be recovered in a few seconds.