On the design and development of emulation platforms for NFV-based infrastructures

Network Functions Virtualisation (NFV) presents several advantages over traditional network architectures, such as flexibility, security, and reduced CAPEX/OPEX. In traditional middleboxes, network functions are usually executed on specialised hardware (e.g., firewall, DPI). Virtual Network Functions (VNFs) on the other hand, are executed on commodity hardware, employing Software Defined Networking (SDN) technologies (e.g., OpenFlow, P4). Although platforms for prototyping NFV environments have emerged in recent years, they still present limitations that hinder the evaluation of NFV scenarios such as fog computing and heterogeneous networks. In this work, we present NIEP: a platform for designing and testing NFV-based infrastructures and VNFs. NIEP consists of a network emulator and a platform for Click-based VNFs development. NIEP provides a complete NFV emulation environment, allowing network operators to test their solutions in a controlled scenario prior to deployment in production networks

A Multi-Site NFV Testbed for Experimentation With SUAV-Based 5G Vertical Services

[EN] With the advent of 5G technologies, vertical markets have been placed at the forefront, as fundamental drivers and adopters of technical developments and new business models. Small Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (SUAVs) are gaining traction in multiple vertical sectors, as key assets to generate, process, and distribute relevant information for the provision of value-added services. However, the enormous potential of SUAVs to support a exible, rapid, and cost-effective deployment of vertical applications is still to be exploited. In this paper, we leverage our prior work on Network Functions Virtualization (NFV) and SUAVs to design and build a multi-site experimentation testbed based on open-source technologies. The goal of this testbed is to explore synergies among NFV, SUAVs, and vertical services, following a practical approach primarily governed by experimentation. To verify our testbed design, we realized a reference use case where a number of SUAVs, cloud infrastructures, and communication protocols are used to provide a multi-site vertical service. Our experimentation results suggest the potential of NFV and SUAVs to exibly support vertical services. The lessons learned have served to identify missing elements in our NFV platform, as well as challenging aspects for potential improvement. These include the development of speci c mechanisms to limit processing load and delays of service deployment operations.This work was supported in part by the European Commission under the European Union's Horizon 2020 program (5GRANGE Project, grant agreement number 777137), and in part by the 5GCity Project funded by the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness under Grant TEC2016-76795-C6-1R, Grant TEC2016-76795-C6-3R, and Grant TEC2016-76795-C6-5R

Introducing Development Features for Virtualized Network Services

Network virtualization and softwarizing network functions are trends aiming at higher network efficiency, cost reduction and agility. They are driven by the evolution in Software Defined Networking (SDN) and Network Function Virtualization (NFV). This shows that software will play an increasingly important role within telecommunication services, which were previously dominated by hardware appliances. Service providers can benefit from this, as it enables faster introduction of new telecom services, combined with an agile set of possibilities to optimize and fine-tune their operations. However, the provided telecom services can only evolve if the adequate software tools are available. In this article, we explain how the development, deployment and maintenance of such an SDN/NFV-based telecom service puts specific requirements on the platform providing it. A Software Development Kit (SDK) is introduced, allowing service providers to adequately design, test and evaluate services before they are deployed in production and also update them during their lifetime. This continuous cycle between development and operations, a concept known as DevOps, is a well known strategy in software development. To extend its context further to SDN/NFV-based services, the functionalities provided by traditional cloud platforms are not yet sufficient. By giving an overview of the currently available tools and their limitations, the gaps in DevOps for SDN/NFV services are highlighted. The benefit of such an SDK is illustrated by a secure content delivery network service (enhanced with deep packet inspection and elastic routing capabilities). With this use-case, the dynamics between developing and deploying a service are further illustrated

Software-driven definition of virtual testbeds to validate emergent network technologies

This paper is an extended version of our paper published in XIII Jornadas de Ingeniería Telemática (JITEL 2017), Valencia, Spain, 27–29 September 2017, “Definición de Testbeds Virtualizados Utilizando Perfiles de Actividad de Red”The lack of privileged access to emergent and operational deployments is one of the key matters during validation and testing of novel telecommunication systems and technologies. This matter jeopardizes the repeatability of experiments, which results in burdens for innovation and research in these areas. In this light, we present a method and architecture to make the software-driven definition of virtual testbeds easier. As distinguishing features, our proposal can mimic operational deployments by using high-dimensional activity patterns. These activity patterns shape the effect of a control module that triggers agents for the generation of network traffic. This solution exploits the capabilities of network emulation and virtualization systems, which nowadays can be easily deployed in commodity servers. With this, we accomplish a reproducible definition of realistic experimental conditions and the introduction of real agent implementations in a cost-effective fashion. We evaluate our solution in a case study that is comprised of the validation of a network-monitoring tool for Voice over IP (VoIP) deployments. Our experimental results support the viability of the method and illustrate how this formulation can improve the experimentation in emergent technologies.This work has been partially funded by the SpanishMinistry of Economy and Competitiveness and the European Regional Development Fund under the projects TRÁFICA (MINECO/FEDER TEC2015-69417-C2-1-R) and RACING DRONES (MINECO/FEDER RTC-2016-4744-7