On the Fly Orchestration of Unikernels: Tuning and Performance Evaluation of Virtual Infrastructure Managers

Network operators are facing significant challenges meeting the demand for more bandwidth, agile infrastructures, innovative services, while keeping costs low. Functions Virtualization (NFV) and Cloud Computing emerging as key trends of 5G network architectures, providing flexibility, fast instantiation times, support Commercial Off The Shelf hardware cost savings. NFV leverages principles to move data-plane functions from expensive, closed proprietary so-called Virtual (VNFs). In this paper we deal with management virtual computing resources (Unikernels) execution VNFs. This functionality is performed by Infrastructure Manager (VIM) in MANagement Orchestration (MANO) reference architecture. We discuss process propose a generic model, starting analysis three open source VIMs, namely OpenStack, Nomad OpenVIM. improve aforementioned VIMs introducing special-purpose Unikernels aiming at reducing duration process. evaluate some performance aspects considering both stock tuned versions. VIM extensions evaluation tools available under liberal licence.