Practical Evaluation of Dynamic Service Function Chaining (SFC) for Softwarized Mobile Services in an SDN-based Cloud Network

The evolving mobile network specifications, as well as the increasingly stringent requirements for bandwidth, quality of service, and dynamic on-demand adaptability, push the boundaries of what is achievable with legacy networking technologies. Software-defined networking (SDN) and Network Functions Virtualization (NFV) provide agile, cost-efficient solutions by enabling an automated Service Management and Orchestration (SMO), allowing for dynamic resource allocation and network (re-)configuration.In this paper, we present an experimental demonstration of an SMO solution for virtualized mobile networks based on a seamless integration of an SDN-based transport network and an cloud computing environment. Our proposed SMO solution is evaluated by investigating the time required for establishing a virtual mobile core network service chain (i.e. a core network slice) on demand within an SDN-based cloud network considering its specific traffic and QoS requirements.