A big switch abstraction to support service function chaining in cloud infrastructure

The concept of Service Function Chaining and Network Functions Virtualisation provides a great degree of flexibility for the rapid deployment of new services in service providers' environments. Data model, metadata and descriptors for virtual network function elements, virtual links, connection points, Virtual Network Function Forwarding Graphs and Network Forwarding paths are specified. In this paper, we present a big switch abstraction to realize Virtual Network Function Forwarding Graphs and network forwarding paths. We show that a configuration that takes into account the bidirectional nature of Linux bridges and the open virtual switch can result in a good bandwidth for network forwarding paths.