Migrating to a NFV-based Home Gateway: Introducing a Surrogate vNF approach

Virtualizing network functions is becoming a major trend in today´s research on cloud computing. Among networking elements, the Home Gateway appears to be one with the most diverse functions to handle and thus, with great potential for virtualization. To this end, the paper proposes a solution to ease adoption by Service Providers of the latest breakthroughs in cloud computing technologies towards a virtualized Home Gateway. Although the NFV approach globally pretends bringing operational advantages in terms of CAPEX and OPEX, it is essential to prove them for Home Gateways scenarios where compatibility and versatility are strong requirements. To achieve this goal, we introduce the concept of Surrogate vNF, which makes Home Gateways NFV aware. The paper highlights a migration path towards full Home Gateway virtualization and proves its concept through a real implementation and a simulated evaluation on a practical use case related to video content distribution.