VNF-B&B: Enabling edge-based NFV with CPE resource sharing

For embracing the ubiquitous Internet-of-Things (IoT) devices, edge computing and Network Function Virtualization (NFV) have been enabled in branch offices and homes to provide network functions on top of generic physical Customer-Premises Equipment (pCPE). While latency can be greatly reduced as most traffic does not need to be transmitted to a remote, centralized cloud, the resource limitation of a single pCPE makes it difficult for VNFs to be elastic enough upon usage surge. In this paper, we present VNF-B&B, an architecture featuring resource sharing of pCPE across the network edge. SP utilizes idle, shareable pCPE nodes as bed-and-breakfast places to deploy VNFs of other users for a certain period. By keeping the VNFs at the network edge, the cost is minimized for processing real-time data burst from IoT devices. Meanwhile, the traffic load to the core network and service delay is substantially reduced.