Scheduling Wireless Virtual Networks Functions
Résumé
Network Function Virtualization (NFV) sits firmly on the networking evolutionary path. By migrating network functions from dedicated devices to general purpose computing platforms, NFV can help reducing the cost to deploy and operate large IT infrastructures. In particular NFV is expected to play a pivotal role in mobile networks where significant cost reductions can obtained by dynamically deploying and scaling Virtual Network Functions (VNFs) in the core and access segments. However, in order to achieve its full potential, NFV needs to extend its reach also the radio access network segment. Here Mobile Virtual Network Operators shall be allowed to request radio access VNFs with custom resource allocation solutions. Such requirement raises several challenges in terms of performance isolation and resource provisioning. In this work, we formalize the wireless VNF placement problem as an integer linear programming problem and we propose a VNF Placement heuristic named WiNE (Wireless Network Embedding) to solve the problem. Moreover, we also present a proof–of–concept implementation of an NFV management and orchestration framework for enterprise WLANs. The proposed architecture builds upon a programmable network fabric where pure forwarding nodes are mixed with radio and packet processing capable nodes. I. INTRODUCTION Network Function Virtualization (NFV) promises to reduce the cost to deploy and operate large networks by migrating network functions from dedicated hardware appliances to software instances running on general purpose virtualized networking and computing infrastructures. This, in time, shall improve the flexibility and the scalability of mobile networks in that the deployment of new applications and services will be quicker (software vs hardware development life–cycles) and different network functions can share the same resources paving the way to further economies of scale. This progressive process of network softwarization is set to play a pivotal role in the fifth generation of the mobile network architecture. In this context the Network–as–a– Service business model shall allow operators to tap into new revenue streams by further abstracting the physical network into service specific slices possibly operated by different mobile virtual network operators (MVNOs). The envisioned vertical applications range from high–definition video delivery to machine–to–machine applications and e–health. In order to cope with the diverse range of requirements that sprout for such use cases, future wireless and mobile networks will further rely on virtualized resources and on dynamic service orchestration. Although a rich body of literature exists in the VNF placement [1], virtual network embedding [2],
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