SNF: synthesizing high performance NFV service chains

• Main Authors: Georgios P. Katsikas, Marcel Enguehard, Maciej Kuźniar, Gerald Q. Maguire Jr, Dejan Kostić
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: PeerJ Inc. 2016-11-01
• Series: PeerJ Computer Science
• Subjects: NFV; Service chains; Synthesis; Single-read-single-write; Line-rate; 40 Gbps
• Online Access: https://peerj.com/articles/cs-98.pdf

In this paper we introduce SNF, a framework that synthesizes (S) network function (NF) service chains by eliminating redundant I/O and repeated elements, while consolidating stateful cross layer packet operations across the chain. SNF uses graph composition and set theory to determine traffic classes handled by a service chain composed of multiple elements. It then synthesizes each traffic class using a minimal set of new elements that apply single-read-single-write and early-discard operations. Our SNF prototype takes a baseline state of the art network functions virtualization (NFV) framework to the level of performance required for practical NFV service deployments. Software-based SNF realizes long (up to 10 NFs) and stateful service chains that achieve line-rate 40 Gbps throughput (up to 8.5x greater than the baseline NFV framework). Hardware-assisted SNF, using a commodity OpenFlow switch, shows that our approach scales at 40 Gbps for Internet Service Provider-level NFV deployments.