Policy-based orchestration of NFV services in Software-Defined Networks

In this paper we investigate synergies between Network Functions Virtualization (NFV) architectures and Software-Defined Networks (SDN). We identify value adding capabilities such technologies may offer to telecom providers regarding agile management and deployment of network functions across their infrastructures. Specifically, we propose a modular NFV architecture that permits policy-based management of Virtualized Network Functions (VNFs). Hence we can handle the lifecycle of VNFs and dynamically instantiate business applications as Service Chains of diverse VNFs delivered to large scale customers. To describe network resources, network control functions and VNFs capabilities we introduced an Information Model that abstracts these elements. In order to verify the proposed architecture we considered the case of multiple Content Delivery Network (CDN) providers having CDN caching nodes hosted by another operator. We implemented and deployed VNFs capable to map virtual links on the physical substrate and monitor the traffic of each client, ultimately providing the means to instantiate and orchestrate a policy-based traffic engineering service as a business application.