Wouter Tavernier

Steven Van Rossem, Wouter Tavernier, Didier Colle et al.

The virtualization of compute and network resources enables an unseen flexibility for deploying network services. A wide spectrum of emerging technologies allows an ever-growing range of orchestration possibilities in cloud-based environments. But in this context it remains challenging to rhyme dynamic cloud configurations with deterministic performance. The service operator must somehow map the performance specification in the Service Level Agreement (SLA) to an adequate resource allocation in the virtualized infrastructure. We propose the use of a VNF profile to alleviate this process. This is illustrated by profiling the performance of four example network functions (a virtual router, switch, firewall and cache server) under varying workloads and resource configurations. We then compare several methods to derive a model from the profiled datasets. We select the most accurate method to further train a model which predicts the services' performance, in function of incoming workload and allocated resources. Our presented method can offer the service operator a recommended resource allocation for the targeted service, in function of the targeted performance and maximum workload specified in the SLA. This helps to deploy the softwarized service with an optimal amount of resources to meet the SLA requirements, thereby avoiding unnecessary scaling steps.

Sevil Dräxler, Manuel Peuster, Holger Karl et al.

In conventional large-scale networks, creation and management of network services are costly and complex tasks that often consume a lot of resources, including time and manpower. Network softwarization and network function virtualization have been introduced to tackle these problems. They replace the hardware-based network service components and network control mechanisms with software components running on general-purpose hardware, aiming at decreasing costs and complexity of implementing new services, maintaining the implemented services, and managing available resources in service provisioning platforms and underlying infrastructures. To experience the full potential of these approaches, innovative development support tools and service provisioning environments are needed. To answer these needs, we introduce the SONATA architecture, a service programming, orchestration, and management framework. We present a development toolchain for virtualized network services, fully integrated with a service platform and orchestration system. We motivate the modular and flexible architecture of our system and discuss its main components and features, such as function- and service-specific managers that allow fine- grained service management, slicing support to facilitate multi-tenancy, recursiveness for improved scalability, and full-featured DevOps support.