Energy-efficient path allocation heuristic for service function chaining

Service Function Chaining (SFC) is a service deployment concept that promises cost efficiency and increases flexibility for computer networks. On the other hand, Software Defined Networking (SDN) provides a powerful infrastructure to implement SFC. In this paper, we mathematically formulate the SFC problem in SDN-based networks. In this way, the energy consumption of the network is minimized while the traffic congestion is controlled through network reconfiguration. Additionally, a low complex heuristic algorithm is proposed to find a near-optimal solution for the mentioned problem. Simulation results show that the proposed heuristic reconfigures the network in a way that the energy consumption is near-optimal while the SFC requirements are met. Besides, the computational complexity is very low which makes it applicable for real-world networks.