Introducing network-aware scheduling capabilities in OpenStack

This paper motivates and describes the introduction of network-aware scheduling capabilities in OpenStack, the open-source reference framework for creating public and private clouds. This feature represents the key for properly supporting the Network Function Virtualization paradigm, particularly when the physical infrastructure features servers distributed across a geographical region. This paper also describes the modifications required to the compute and network components, Nova and Neutron, and the integration of a network controller into the cloud infrastructure, which is in charge of feeding the network-aware scheduler with the actual network topology.