A joint network and server load balancing algorithm for chaining virtualized network functions
Minh‐Tuan Thai, Ying–Dar Lin, Yuan‐Cheng Lai · 2016
Chaining virtualized network functions (VNF) is an effective practice to deploy network services in network operator's data centers. Two common concerns arise in such a deployment are network load balancing and server load balancing. In this study, motivated by the argument that such two concerns should be jointly addressed for efficiently chaining VNFs in a data center environment, we propose a 2-phase algorithm, Nearest First and Local-Global Transformation (NF-LGT), which concurrently supports network and service load balancing. The algorithm firstly constructs service chains by a greedy strategy which both considers network latency and server latency. Then a searching technique is applied to improve the solutions. We have implemented the algorithm using Software-defined networking (SDN)/OpenFlow concept. The experimental results indicate that, compared with a sequential approach, NF-LGT improves the system bandwidth utilization up to 45%.