Flow Clustering Based Efficient Consolidated Middlebox Positioning Approach for SDN/NFV-Enabled Network

Abstract

Recently in an SDN/NFV-enabled network, a consolidated middlebox is proposed in which middlebox functions required by a network flow are provided at a single machine in a virtualized manner. With the promising advantages such as simplifying network traffic routing and saving resources of switches and machines, consolidated middleboxes are going to replace traditional middleboxes in the near future. However, the location of consolidated middleboxes may affect the performance of an SDN/NFV network significantly. Accordingly, the consolidated middlebox positioning problem in an SDN/NFV-enabled network must be addressed adequately with service chain constraints (a flow must visit a specific type of consolidated middlebox), resource constraints (switch memory and processing power of the machine), and performance requirements (end-to-end delay and bandwidth consumption). In this paper, we propose a novel solution of the consolidated middlebox positioning problem in an SDN/NFV-enabled network based on flow clustering to improve the performance of service chain flows and utilization of a consolidated middlebox. Via extensive simulations, we show that our solution significantly reduces the number of routing rules per switch, the end-to-end delay and bandwidth consumption of service flows while meeting service chain and resource constraints.