A Distributed Service Function Chain Orchestration Approach with VNF Reuse to Balance Latency and Resource Efficiency

The Fifth-Generation mobile networks (5G) and Beyond 5G (B5G) have been proposed to support a variety of application scenarios, such as enhanced Mobile Broadband (eMBB), ultra-Reliable Low-Latency Communications (uRLLC), and massive Machine Type Communications (mMTC). On the other hand, Mobile Edge Computing (MEC) and Network Functions Virtualization (NFV) technologies have been widely advocated by service providers to meet diverse service demands and reduce operational costs. To alleviate the pressure on the edge network, resource consumption can be minimized by considering the reuse of Virtual Network Function (VNF) instances. However, implementing VNF chain deployment with latency guarantees and resource efficiency in a distributed network architecture remains an urgent issue to be addressed. In this paper, we explore the Service Function Chains (SFCs) orchestration problem with distributed edge network resources, aiming to design efficient service flow routing and resource allocation schemes to significantly respond to local user requests. We propose a low-complexity Distributed SFCs Orchestration algorithm with VNF Reuse (DSOR), which initially uses local information at the edge to explore the VNFs orchestration scheme and executes the distributed service orchestration. Subsequently, service chains are deployed based on asynchronous consensus to enhance network utility and reduce resource costs. Finally, the performance of DSOR is evaluated through extensive simulation experiments. The experimental results indicate that DSOR can improve the utilization of network resources, as well as the response rate to edge service requests.