Cloud-based Network Function Virtualization Using OPNFV Components

Abstract

The growth in the demand for services requires an expansion of the capacity of networks, that is, of their ability to achieve the transfer of information and provide new functionalities; but the clearest impediment to such growth is hardware limitations. Due to this problem, new trends in network architectures present virtualization as a solution. NFV (Network Function Virtualization) allows decoupling network services or functions from proprietary hardware and deploying them on virtual instances on a cloud environment. Thus, this work aims to implement simple network functions (Web server, DNS, vRouting and firewall) by using specific OPNFV components, which is an open software project focused on the development and evolution of NFV. The chosen components for the development of this work are Openstack and Tacker. Openstack is used as a virtual infrastructure manager, i.e., a cloud computing administrator while Tacker allows the virtual network function management and orchestration. As a final product, the implementation of a complete cloud-based network has been achieved, demonstrating the benefits in the creation, execution and management of virtual network functions offered by NFV technology.