Multiple service function chaining under load balance in SDN/NFV networks
Faqiang Liu, Xin Chen, Wei An, Yong Jun Peng, Jiuyue Cao, Ke Zhang · 2017
Service Function Chaining (SFC) has received considerable attentions due to its potential in improving the flexibility and efficiency of networks. Software-Defined Networking (SDN) and Network Functions Virtualization (NFV) bring new opportunities for flexibly implementing SFCs by dynamically composing network functions in SDN/NFV networks. In this paper, we first introduce the SFC instantiation for a single path and formulate this procedure as a model of the Shortest Path Tour Problem, and find the minimum delay path for an SFC by exploiting a constructed auxiliary multistage graph. Next, we present a polynomial-time algorithm for finding minimum delay paths for multiple SFCs under the load balance constraint of link utilization. Finally, some experiments are carried out and the results show the effectiveness and efficiency of our proposed method.