DocumentCode :
599941
Title :
vNFC: A Virtual Networking Function Container for SDN-Enabled Virtual Networks
Author :
Kawashima, R.
Author_Institution :
ACCESS Co., Ltd., Tokyo, Japan
fYear :
2012
fDate :
3-4 Dec. 2012
Firstpage :
124
Lastpage :
129
Abstract :
Software-defined networks (SDN) has gradually been deployed on commercial networks such as datacenter networks. Current SDN is based on OpenFlow technology that is a set ofnetwork flow control API for switch devices. For instance, network reachability between end-hosts (or virtual machines), packet filtering mechanisms, and status management of switches are enabled by the API. In practice, however, current OpenFlow-based SDN has following problems: no application-layer protocol support and switch-oriented flow control. Since OpenFlow targets L2-L4 flow handling, users have to arrange additional mechanism for upper-layer flow control. Furthermore, executing a lot of flow matching on a single switch (or virtual switch) can cause difficulty in network trace and overall performance degradation.This paper proposes a virtual networking function container (vNFC) that is a set of software implemented networking functions for VM-to-VM communications, and it is located between a virtual machine and a virtual network device of the host machine. vNFC enables not only lower-layer functions OpenFlow providing, but also upper-layer functions like application firewall in the same manner. That is, vNFC is a virtual machine dedicated flow handling function set. In addition, OpenFlow-compatible vNFC configuration protocol named OpenNF and vNFC controller are also presented. OpenNF provides communication path between each networking function and the controller for configuration and decision making.In this paper, architectural design and implementation of vNFC are presented, and also performance evaluation of using vNFC. The evaluation result shows that a lightweight networking function does not impact on the performance, but a function that frequently communicates with the controller incurs millisecond order cost per frame transmission.
Keywords :
application program interfaces; configuration management; firewalls; protocols; reachability analysis; software architecture; software performance evaluation; virtual machines; API network flow control; L2-L4 flow handling; OpenFlow technology; OpenFlow-compatible vNFC configuration protocol; OpenNF controller; SDN-enabled virtual networks; VM-to-VM communications; application firewall; architectural design; datacenter networks; flow handling function set; host machine; network reachability; network trace; overall performance degradation; packet filtering mechanisms; software-defined networks; switch devices; switches status management; upper-layer flow control; vNFC controller; virtual machines; virtual network device; virtual networking function container; virtual switch; Libraries; Noise measurement; Performance evaluation; Protocols; Switches; Virtual machining; OpenFlow; datacenter network; software-defined networks; systemcall interposition; virtual network;
fLanguage :
English
Publisher :
ieee
Conference_Titel :
Network Cloud Computing and Applications (NCCA), 2012 Second Symposium on
Conference_Location :
London
Print_ISBN :
978-1-4673-5581-0
Type :
conf
DOI :
10.1109/NCCA.2012.18
Filename :
6472468
Link To Document :
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