An implementation of hierarchical service function chaining using OpenDaylight platform

In recent year, the rise of Network Function Virtualization (NFV) and Software-defined Networking (SDN) makes the service chain and application provisioning process much agile and simpler, promoting the development of Service Function Chaining (SFC). Service Function Chaining (SFC) provides flexibility and agility for deploying and managing network services. The most challenging problems in SFC are deploying and organizing in large scale, multi-region data center with multiple operational teams. One feasible solution for these issues is decomposing SFC into multiple nested lower-level domains, establishing a hierarchical structure. In this paper, we present a Hierarchical Service Function Chaining (H-SFC) architecture using SDN to enable multi-layered service function chains. We implement the architecture in the OpenDaylight SFC environment and prove that it could simplify SFC management and orchestration.