VirtPhy: Fully Programmable NFV Orchestration Architecture for Edge Data Centers

Emerging paradigms, such as edge computing, require the geographical distribution of small-scale data centers that will use network functions virtualization (NFV) to provide new services with stringent demands related to throughput, latency, cost, innovation, and efficient orchestration. To tackle these demands, this paper proposes VirtPhy, a fully programmable architecture for NFV orchestration in edge data centers, based on server-centric topologies, software-defined networking, software switches, distributed service chaining, and source routing. A proof-of-concept is implemented in a data center testbed using OpenStack cloud platform in a hypercube topology. The results show its orchestration mechanisms can efficiently provision NFV service requests by steering traffic through a sequence of virtualized network functions in a server-centric topology.