Resource Abstractions in NFV Management and Orchestration: Experimental Evaluation

The expected complexity of shared 5G/6G cloud and network infrastructures requires a functional management orchestration (MANO) architecture to automatically provision distinct vertical services. These are mapped as generic services (NSes) specifying their computing networking needs: Virtual Network Functions (VNFs) Links. We focus on hierarchical MANO implementation where Resource Layer orchestrator handles the configuration physical infrastructure exposes an abstract view it upper-layer Service Orchestrator. Two different abstraction philosophies adopted, namely Infrastructure Abstraction, which pre-calculates resource allocations before advertising them, Connection potential connectivity without actual allocation. resulting abstracted becomes input Orchestrator make (placement) decisions fulfilling NS demands. Thus, novel placement algorithm is devised which, unlike previous works, can handle NSes with arbitrary VNF topology performance functions experimentally evaluated by dynamically creating/terminating heterogeneous in terms of: blocking, blocked bandwidth/VNF ratio, bandwidth occupancy, distribution per site. From results, Abstraction does attain more efficient use resources general, performs better than approach.