Minimizing transmission cost for multiple service function chains 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 remarkably improving the flexibility and efficiency of networks. Network Functions Virtualization (NFV) and Software-Defined Networking (SDN) are becoming promising ways for realizing SFC. A key feature in SDN/NFV networks is the capability of dynamically composing network functions into complex services. In this paper, we first introduce SFC instantiation and form it as the model of the Shortest Path Tour Problem, then find the minimum transmission cost path with network function order constraints for a single SFC by exploiting a constructed multistage graph. Next, we derive minimum transmission cost paths for multiple SFC classes using the Dijkstra's Shortest Path Algorithm with resource constraints in a flexible way. Finally, some experiments are carried out and the results show the effectiveness and efficiency of our proposed method.