Abstract
Nowadays, network functionalities are provided through dedicated hardware middleboxes. These hardware middleboxes are statically embedded with network topology to provide the network services. The types of middleboxes increase in the network, with an increased number of users and network services. The growth in multiple kinds of middleboxes creates an ossified network that is difficult for network management. Network Function Virtualization (NFV) deals with such problems by eliminating network functions from the piece of hardware and implement it as a software to execute in a commodity server. The network virtualization provides more flexibility and elasticity in the network to automatically manage and control the network functions. NFV internally implements the different algorithms to automate the on-demand service provisioning mechanism. In the service provisioning process, NFV allows to share the physical resources among the Virtual Network Functions (VNFs). In order to optimally allocate the physical resources to each VNF, there is a need to include some efficient resource sharing mechanisms in NFV infrastructure. These resource sharing mechanisms are the VNF placement, service chaining, VNFs scheduling, and VNF migration. Therefore, this survey discusses the solutions, implementation tools, and limitations with respect to these resource sharing mechanisms. Moreover, research challenges and current trends related to the resource sharing strategies are explored.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Addis B, Belabed D, Bouet M, Secci S (2015) Virtual network functions placement and routing optimization. In: CloudNet, pp 171–177
Alleg A, Kouah R, Moussaoui S, Ahmed T (2017) Virtual network functions placement and chaining for real-time applications. In: 2017 IEEE 22nd International Workshop on Computer Aided Modeling and Design of Communication Links and Networks (CAMAD). IEEE, pp 1–6
Allybokus Z, Perrot N, Leguay J, Maggi L, Gourdin E (2018) Virtual function placement for service chaining with partial orders and anti-affinity rules. Networks 71(2):97–106
Andrus B, Autenrieth A, Pachnicke S, Olmos JJV, Monroy IT (2016) Live migration downtime analysis of a vnf guest for a proposed optical fmc network architecture. In: Proceedings of Photonic Networks; 17. ITG-Symposium. VDE, pp 1–5
Bari MF, Zhani MF, Zhang Q, Ahmed R, Boutaba R (2014) CQNCR: optimal VM migration planning in cloud data centers. In: 2014 IFIP Networking Conference, Trondheim, Norway, June 2-4, 2014, pp 1–9
Bari F, Shihabur RC, Ahmed R, Boutaba R, Duarte OCMB (2016) Orchestrating virtualized network functions. IEEE Trans Netw Serv Manag 13(4):725–739
Bhamare D, Samaka ED, Erbad A, Jain R, Gupta L, Chan HA (2017) Optimal virtual network function placement in multi-cloud service function chaining architecture. Comput Commun 102:1–16
Cerroni W, Callegati F (2014) Live migration of virtual network functions in cloud-based edge networks. In: 2014 IEEE International Conference on Communications (ICC). IEEE, pp 2963–2968
Cisco VNI (2018) Cisco visual networking index: Forecast and trends, 2017–2022. White Paper, 1
Clayman S, Maini E, Galis A, Manzalini A, Mazzocca N (2014) The dynamic placement of virtual network functions. In: 2014 IEEE Network Operations and Management Symposium (NOMS). IEEE, pp 1–9
Cohen R, Lewin-Eytan L, Naor JS, Raz D (2015) Near optimal placement of virtual network functions. In: 2015 IEEE Conference on Computer Communications (INFOCOM). IEEE, pp 1346–1354
Docker Inc. Docker Documentation. https://www.docker.com/, 2013. [Online; accessed 06-October-2020]
El Khoury N, Ayoubi S, Assi C (2016) Energy-aware placement and scheduling of network traffic flows with deadlines on virtual network functions. In: 2016 5th IEEE International Conference on Cloud Networking (Cloudnet). IEEE, pp 89–94
Eramo V, Ammar M, Lavacca FG (2017) Migration energy aware reconfigurations of virtual network function instances in nfv architectures. IEEE Access 5:4927–4938
Eramo V, Miucci E, Ammar M, Lavacca FG (2017) An approach for service function chain routing and virtual function network instance migration in network function virtualization architectures. IEEE/ACM Trans Netw 25(4):2008–2025
Eramo V, Lavacca FG (2017) Definition and evaluation of cold migration policies for the minimization of the energy consumption in nfv architectures. In: International Tyrrhenian Workshop on Digital Communication. Springer, pp 45–60
ETSI. Network functions virtualisation (nfv): Architectural framework. https://www.etsi.org/deliver/etsi_gs/nfv/001_099/002/01.01.01_60/gs_nfv002v010101p.pdf
Floodlight Project (2016) Floodlight Controller Documentation. https://floodlight.atlassian.net/wiki/spaces/floodlightcontroller/overview, [Online; accessed 06-October-2020]
Gadre A, Anbiah A, Sivalingam KM (2017) A customizable agile approach to network function placement. In: 2017 European Conference on Networks and Communications (EuCNC). IEEE, pp 1–6
Gember-Jacobson A, Akella A (2015) Improving the safety, scalability, and efficiency of network function state transfers. In: Proceedings of the 2015 ACM SIGCOMM Workshop on Hot Topics in Middleboxes and Network Function Virtualization. ACM, pp 43–48
Gember-Jacobson A, Viswanathan R, Prakash C, Grandl R, Khalid J, Das S, Akella A (2014) Opennf: Enabling innovation in network function control. In: ACM SIGCOMM Computer Communication Review, vol 44. ACM, pp 163–174
Ghaznavi M, Khan A, Shahriar N, Alsubhi K, Ahmed R, Boutaba R (2015) Elastic virtual network function placement. In: 2015 IEEE 4th International Conference on Cloud Networking (CloudNet). IEEE, pp 255–260
Gupta A, Habib MF, Mandal U, Chowdhury P, Tornatore M, Mukherjee B (2018) On service-chaining strategies using virtual network functions in operator networks. Comput Netw 133:1–16
Halpern J, Pignataro C (2015) Service function chaining (sfc) architecture. Technical report
Hsieh C-H, Chang J-W, Chen C, Lu S-H (2016) Network-aware service function chaining placement in a data center. In: 2016 18th Asia-Pacific Network Operations and Management Symposium (APNOMS). IEEE, pp 1–6
Ibn-Khedher H, Abd-Elrahman E, Afifi H (2016) OMAC: optimal migration algorithm for virtual CDN. In: 23rd International Conference on Telecommunications, ICT 2016, Thessaloniki, Greece, May 16–18, 2016, pp 1–6
Ibn-Khedher H, Abd-Elrahman E, Afifi H (2016) Omac: Optimal migration algorithm for virtual cdn. In: 2016 23rd International Conference on Telecommunications (ICT). IEEE, pp 1–6
Kar B, Wu EHK, Lin Y-D (2018) Energy cost optimization in dynamic placement of virtualized network function chains. IEEE Trans Netw Serv Manag 15(1):372–386
Kaur S, Singh J, Ghumman NS (2014) Network programmability using pox controller. In: International Conference on Communication, Computing & Systems (ICCCN’2014), pp 134–138
libvirt Virtualization. Libvirt Virtualization Documentation. https://libvirt.org/docs.html, 2016. [Online; accessed 06-October-2020]
Linux Foundation (2010) Data Plane Development Kit (DPDK) Documentation. http://core.dpdk.org/doc/. [Online; accessed 06-October-2020]
Linux Foundation. The Xen Project (2016) https://xenproject.org/, [Online; accessed 06-October-2020]
Liu L, Qiu Z (2016) A survey on virtual machine scheduling in cloud computing. In: 2016 2nd IEEE International Conference on Computer And Communications (ICCC). IEEE, pp 2717–2721
Liu L, Xu H, Niu Z, Wang P, Han D (2016) U-haul: efficient state migration in nfv. In: Proceedings of the 7th ACM SIGOPS Asia-Pacific Workshop on Systems. ACM, p 2
Lucrezia F, Marchetto G, Risso F, Vercellone V (2015) Introducing network-aware scheduling capabilities in openstack. In: Proceedings of the 2015 1st IEEE Conference On Network Softwarization (NetSoft). IEEE, pp 1–5
Luizelli MC, Bays LR, Buriol LS, Barcellos MP, Gaspary LP (2015) Piecing together the nfv provisioning puzzle: Efficient placement and chaining of virtual network functions. In 2015 IFIP/IEEE International Symposium on Integrated Network Management (IM). IEEE, pp 98–106
Luizelli MC, da Costa Cordeiro WL, Buriol LS, Gaspary LP (2017) A fix-and-optimize approach for efficient and large scale virtual network function placement and chaining. Comput Commun 102:67–77
Martins J, Ahmed M, Raiciu C, Olteanu V, Honda M, Bifulco R, Huici F (2014) Clickos and the art of network function virtualization. In: 11th \(\{\)USENIX\(\}\) Symposium on Networked Systems Design and Implementation (\(\{\)NSDI\(\}\) 14), pp 459–473
Mechtri M, Ghribi C, Zeghlache D (2016) A scalable algorithm for the placement of service function chains. IEEE Trans Netw Serve Manag 13(3):533–546
Medina V, García JM (2014) A survey of migration mechanisms of virtual machines. ACM Comput Surv 46(3):301–3033
Mehraghdam S, Keller M, Karl H (2014) Specifying and placing chains of virtual network functions. In: 2014 IEEE 3rd International Conference on Cloud Networking (CloudNet). IEEE, pp 7–13 2014
Mijumbi R, Serrat J, Gorricho J-L, Bouten N, De Turck F, Boutaba R (2016) Network function virtualization: state-of-the-art and research challenges. IEEE Commun Surv Tutor 18(1):236–262
Mijumbi R, Serrat J, Gorricho GL, Bouten N, De Turck F, Davy S (2015) Design and evaluation of algorithms for mapping and scheduling of virtual network functions. In: Proceedings of the 2015 1st IEEE Conference on Network Softwarization (NetSoft). IEEE, pp 1–9
Miotto G, Luizelli MC, da Costa Cordeiro WL, Gaspary LP (2019) Adaptive placement & chaining of virtual network functions with nfv-pear. J Internet Serv Appl 10(1):3
Moens H, De Turck F (2014) Vnf-p: a model for efficient placement of virtualized network functions. In: 10th International Conference on Network and Service Management (CNSM) and workshop. IEEE, pp 418–423
Mohammadkhan A, Ghapani S, Liu G, Zhang W, Ramakrishnan KK, Wood T (2015) Virtual function placement and traffic steering in flexible and dynamic software defined networks. In: The 21st IEEE International Workshop on Local and Metropolitan Area Networks. IEEE, pp 1–6
Nakagawa Y, Lee C, Hyoudou K, Kobayashi S, Shiraki O, Tanaka J, Ishihara T (2015) Dynamic virtual network configuration between containers using physical switch functions for nfv infrastructure. In 2015 IEEE Conference on Network Function Virtualization and Software Defined Network (NFV-SDN). IEEE, pp 156–162
Naous J, Erickson D, Covington GA, Appenzeller G, McKeown N (2008) Implementing an openflow switch on the netfpga platform. In: Proceedings of the 4th ACM/IEEE Symposium on Architectures for Networking and Communications Systems, pp 1–9
Natarajan S, Krishnan RR, Ghanwani A, Krishnaswamy D, Willis P, Chaudhary A, Huici F (2017) An analysis of lightweight virtualization technologies for nfv. In: Proceedings of the IETF Draft, pp 1–16
Network Functions Virtualisation (2012) An introduction, benefits, enablers, challenges & call for action. In White Paper, SDN and OpenFlow World Congress
Nobach L, Rimac I, Hilt V, Hausheer D (2017) Statelet-based efficient and seamless nfv state transfer. IEEE Trans Netw Serv Manag 14(4):964–977
OpenStack. APIs. https://docs.openstack.org/doc-contrib-guide/quickstart.html. [Online; accessed 06-October-2020]
OpenStack. Taap as a Service. https://docs.openstack.org/developer/dragonflow/specs/tap_as_a_service.html. [Online; accessed 06-October-2020]
Pham C, Tran NH, Hong CS (2017) Virtual network function scheduling: a matching game approach. IEEE Commun Lett 22(1):69–72
Pham C, Tran NH, Ren S, Saad W, Hong CS (2017) Traffic-aware and energy-efficient vnf placement for service chaining: joint sampling and matching approach. IEEE Trans Serv Comput
Project KVM (2016) The Kernel-based Virtual Machine Project. https://www.linux-kvm.org/page/Main_Page. [Online; accessed 06-October-2020]
Qazi ZA, Tu C-C, Chiang L, Miao R, Sekar V, Yu M (2013) Simple-fying middlebox policy enforcement using sdn. In: ACM SIGCOMM Computer Communication Review, vol 43. ACM, pp 27–38
Qu L, Assi C, Shaban K (2016) Delay-aware scheduling and resource optimization with network function virtualization. IEEE Trans Commun 64(9):3746–3758
Qu L, Assi C, Shaban K (2016) Network function virtualization scheduling with transmission delay optimization. In: NOMS 2016-2016 IEEE/IFIP Network Operations and Management Symposium. IEEE, pp 638–644
Rajagopalan S, Williams D, Jamjoom H, Warfield A (2013) Split/merge: System support for elastic execution in virtual middleboxes. In Presented as part of the 10th \(\{\)USENIX\(\}\) symposium on networked systems design and implementation (\(\{\)NSDI\(\}\) 13), pp 227–240
Riera JF, Escalona E, Batalle J, Grasa E, Garcia-Espin JA (2014) Virtual network function scheduling: Concept and challenges. In: 2014 International Conference on Smart Communications in Network Technologies (SaCoNeT). IEEE, pp 1–5
Riggio R, Bradai A, Harutyunyan D, Rasheed T, Ahmed T (2016) Scheduling wireless virtual networks functions. IEEE Trans Netw Serv Manag 13(2):240–252
Riggio R, Bradai A, Rasheed T, Schulz-Zander J, Kuklinski S, Ahmed T (2015) Virtual network functions orchestration in wireless networks. In: 2015 11th International Conference on Network and Service Management (CNSM). IEEE, pp 108–116
Sahhaf S, Tavernier W, Rost M, Schmid S, Colle D, Pickavet M, Demeester P (2015) Network service chaining with optimized network function embedding supporting service decompositions. Comput Netw 93:492–505
Sherry J, Hasan S, Scott C, Krishnamurthy A, Ratnasamy S, Sekar V (2012) Making middleboxes someone else’s problem: network processing as a cloud service. ACM SIGCOMM Comput Commun Rev 42(4):13–24
Shifrin M, Biton E, Gurewitz O (2006) Optimal control of vnf deployment and scheduling. In: 2016 IEEE International Conference on the Science of Electrical Engineering (ICSEE). IEEE, pp 1–5
Shi R, Zhang J, Chu W, Bao Q, Jin X, Gong C, Zhu Q, Yu C, Rosenberg S (2015) Mdp and machine learning-based cost-optimization of dynamic resource allocation for network function virtualization. In: 2015 IEEE International Conference on Services Computing. IEEE, pp 65–73
Soualah O, Mechtri M, Ghribi C, Zeghlache D (2017) An efficient algorithm for virtual network function placement and chaining. In: 2017 14th IEEE Annual Consumer Communications & Networking Conference (CCNC). IEEE, pp 647–652
Taleb T, Bagaa M, Ksentini A (2015) User mobility-aware virtual network function placement for virtual 5g network infrastructure. In: 2015 IEEE International Conference on Communications (ICC). IEEE, pp 3879–3884
Trajkovska I, Kourtis M-A, Sakkas C, Baudinot D, Silva J, Harsh P, Xylouris G, Bohnert TM, Koumaras H (2017) Sdn-based service function chaining mechanism and service prototype implementation in nfv scenario. Comput Stand Interfaces 54:247–265
Wang H, Li Y, Zhang Y, Jin D (2017) Virtual machine migration planning in software-defined networks. IEEE Trans Cloud Comput
Wang Y, Xie G, Li Z, He P, Salamatian K (2016) Transparent flow migration for nfv. In: 2016 IEEE 24th International Conference on Network Protocols (ICNP). IEEE, pp 1–10
Yi B, Wang X, Li K, Huang M et al (2018) A comprehensive survey of network function virtualization. Comput Netw
Yoshida M, Shen W, Kawabata T, Minato K, Morsa WI (2014) A multi-objective resource scheduling algorithm for nfv infrastructure. In: The 16th Asia-Pacific Network Operations and Management Symposium. IEEE, pp 1–6
Zhang X, Huang Z, Wu C, Li Z, Lau FCM (2017) Online stochastic buy-sell mechanism for vnf chains in the nfv market. IEEE J Sel Areas Commun 35(2):392–406
Zhang Y, Li Y, Xu K, Wang D, Li M, Cao X, Liang Q (2017) A communication-aware container re-distribution approach for high performance vnfs. In: 2017 IEEE 37th International Conference on Distributed Computing Systems (ICDCS). IEEE, pp 1555–1564
Zhang J, Wu W, Lui J (2018) On the theory of function placement and chaining for network function virtualization. In: Proceedings of the Eighteenth ACM International Symposium on Mobile Ad Hoc Networking and Computing. ACM, pp 91–100
Zhang Q, Xiao Y, Liu F, Lui JCS, Guo J, Wang T (2017) Joint optimization of chain placement and request scheduling for network function virtualization. In: 2017 IEEE 37th International Conference on Distributed Computing Systems (ICDCS). IEEE, pp 731–741
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Additional information
Publisher's Note
Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.
Please note that the LNCS Editorial assumes that all authors have used the western naming convention, with given names preceding surnames. This determines the structure of the names in the running heads and the author index.
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Umrao, B.K., Yadav, D.K. Algorithms for functionalities of virtual network: a survey. J Supercomput 77, 7368–7439 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11227-020-03502-9
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11227-020-03502-9