Service chain modeling and embedding for NFV-based content delivery

Increasing over-the-top video consumption endangers the sustainability of content delivery over the Internet. Internet Service Providers (ISP) face difficulties in competing on value-added services with content providers and Content Delivery Network (CDN) operators. In this respect, we propose a new model for the collaboration between content delivery stakeholders, so that CDN operators can deploy their software in ISP infrastructures leveraging on Network Function Virtualization (NFV). As the ISP network topology and utilization is deemed confidential, we use a high-level Service Level Agreement (SLA) for the negotiation of both computing resources and connectivity, allowing the ISP to optimize server selection, while providing at the same time sufficient flexibility to the CDN operators for content delivery. Furthermore, we present a linear programming formulation for the VNF Service Chain Embedding and an heuristic to increase problem tractability with a small cost overhead. Finally, we validate the efficiency of the proposed service chain model for virtual CDN management.