Industry 4.0: A Survey on Technologies, Applications and Open Research Issues

Network function virtualization (NFV) has drawn significant attention from both industry and academia as an important shift in telecommunication service provisioning. By decoupling network functions (NFs) from the physical devices on which they run, NFV has the potential to lead to significant reductions in operating expenses (OPEX) and capital expenses (CAPEX) and facilitate the deployment of new services with increased agility and faster time-to-value. The NFV paradigm is still in its infancy and there is a large spectrum of opportunities for the research community to develop new architectures, systems and applications, and to evaluate alternatives and trade-offs in developing technologies for its successful deployment. In this paper, after discussing NFV and its relationship with complementary fields of software defined networking (SDN) and cloud computing, we survey the state-of-the-art in NFV, and identify promising research directions in this area. We also overview key NFV projects, standardization efforts, early implementations, use cases, and commercial products.

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Network Function Virtualization: State-of-the-Art and Research Challenges

The Grid 2: Blueprint for a New Computing Infrastructure

Emerging mega-trends (e.g., mobile, social, cloud, and big data) in information and communication technologies (ICT) are commanding new challenges to future Internet, for which ubiquitous accessibility, high bandwidth, and dynamic management are crucial. However, traditional approaches based on manual configuration of proprietary devices are cumbersome and error-prone, and they cannot fully utilize the capability of physical network infrastructure. Recently, software-defined networking (SDN) has been touted as one of the most promising solutions for future Internet. SDN is characterized by its two distinguished features, including decoupling the control plane from the data plane and providing programmability for network application development. As a result, SDN is positioned to provide more efficient configuration, better performance, and higher flexibility to accommodate innovative network designs. This paper surveys latest developments in this active research area of SDN. We first present a generally accepted definition for SDN with the aforementioned two characteristic features and potential benefits of SDN. We then dwell on its three-layer architecture, including an infrastructure layer, a control layer, and an application layer, and substantiate each layer with existing research efforts and its related research areas. We follow that with an overview of the de facto SDN implementation (i.e., OpenFlow). Finally, we conclude this survey paper with some suggested open research challenges.

A Survey on Software-Defined Networking

Network functions virtualization (NFV) is a new network architecture framework where network function that traditionally used dedicated hardware (middleboxes or network appliances) are now implemented in software that runs on top of general purpose hardware such as high volume server. NFV emerges as an initiative from the industry (network operators, carriers, and manufacturers) in order to increase the deployment flexibility and integration of new network services with increased agility within operator’s networks and to obtain significant reductions in operating expenditures and capital expenditures. NFV promotes virtualizing network functions such as transcoders, firewalls, and load balancers, among others, which were carried out by specialized hardware devices and migrating them to software-based appliances. One of the main challenges for the deployment of NFV is the resource allocation of demanded network services in NFV-based network infrastructures. This challenge has been called the NFV resource allocation (NFV-RA) problem. This paper presents a comprehensive state of the art of NFV-RA by introducing a novel classification of the main approaches that pose solutions to solve it. This paper also presents the research challenges that are still subject of future investigation in the NFV-RA realm.

Resource Allocation in NFV: A Comprehensive Survey

A novel software-defined packet over optical networks solution based on the OpenFlow and GMPLS control plane integration is demonstrated. The proposed architecture, experimental setup, and average flow setup time for different optical flows is reported.

Integrated OpenFlow — GMPLS control plane: An overlay model for software defined packet over optical networks

Software-Defined Networking and Network Functions Virtualization have initiated a new landscape within the telecom market landscape. Initial proof-of-concept prototypes for NFV-enabled solutions are being developed at the same time SDN models are identified as the futures solutions within the telecom realm. In this article, we provide a brief overview of the application and state-of-the-art of SDN and NFV technologies over optical networks. At the same time, we provide the first formalisation model for the VNF complex scheduling problem, using the complex job formalisation. The article aims at being used as starting point in order to optimally solve the scheduling problem of virtual network functions that compose network services to be provisioned within the SDN paradigm. Finally, we also provide an example of the virtualization of the routing function over an SDN-enabled domain.

Virtual network function scheduling: Concept and challenges

Network Function Virtualization (NFV) has emerged as an operator proposal for offering network services with network functions implemented in software, which may be located in Data Centers, network nodes or even in a virtual machine NFV is theoretically applicable to any network function and aims at simplifying the management of heterogeneous hardware platforms Using as a basis one of the network functions offered by network routers, this article presents the analysis, design, and the first implementation, in a virtualized manner, of the routing function Considering the current co-existence of IPv4 and IPv6 and the possibilities brought into the arena by OpenFlow-enabled infrastructures, the article describes the design of the virtualized routing protocol, enabling a simple management and avoiding signaling messages overhead in the control plane level, and the different scenarios considered to validate the virtualized function In essence, the manuscript describes one of the first implementations of the functional NFV concept, through the virtualization of the routing function over an OpenFlow network The different scenarios validated in the article are used to demonstrate the applicability of the NFV-powered implementation proposed into actual production environments

On the Implementation of NFV over an OpenFlow Infrastructure: Routing Function Virtualization

Future Internet services are characterized by global delivery of high-performance network-based applications over a high-capacity dynamic optical network As these types of applications evolve, it is not feasible or scalable for network operators to setup and configure dedicated network for each Internet application type or category Therefore, a key challenge for network operators is the deployment of dynamic optical infrastructures at high data rates capable of supporting all application types, each with their own access and network resource usage patterns This paper aims to propose a novel solution based on Optical Network Virtualization for addressing this challenge of the future Internet This paper first introduces the concept of optical network virtualization, and its implication on optical network elements and transport technologies Then, it describes how different transport format and switching technologies can be used for virtualization and what the possible challenges are Finally, it introduces the possible architectural solutions enabled by optical network virtualization

Optical network virtualization

Network Service Providers should offer provisioning services with guaranteed Quality of Service (QoS), specifically adapted to the characteristics of the applications running on their network. In this paper we propose the Network Control Layer (NCL), a software framework solution based on Software Defined Networks (SDN), OpenFlow and Network as a Service (NaaS) paradigms. It addresses a major innovation area in the field of network control and management providing on-demand end-to-end network provisioning services with guaranteed QoS, based on the specific requirements of on-top running interactive applications. The NCL implementation is based on the OpenNaaS framework, and it includes mechanisms for network status monitoring and SDN switches configuration based on the interactive applications' QoS network requirements. We demonstrate NCL's utility in the context of control plane models making use of a practical use case.

Eduard Escalona

Papers

Integrated OpenFlow — GMPLS control plane: An overlay model for software defined packet over optical networks

Virtual network function scheduling: Concept and challenges

On the Implementation of NFV over an OpenFlow Infrastructure: Routing Function Virtualization

Optical network virtualization

An OpenNaaS Based SDN Framework for Dynamic QoS Control