New control of networks / IT : Performance analysis of virtualized network functions for a programmable infrastructure

Overview & Synopsis

In the framework of Network Function Virtualization (NFV), we address in this work the performance analysis of virtualized network functions (VNFs) in terms of latency, which considers the total amount of time that is required to process VNFs in cloud computing systems. The driving use-case of this study is the virtualization of the radio access network (namely, Cloud-RAN). We notably investigate the relevance of resource pooling and statistical multiplexing when available cores in a data center are shared by all active VNFs. We perform VNF modeling by means of stochastic service systems. Proposed queuing models reveal the behavior of high performance computing architectures based on parallel processing and enable us to dimension the required computing capacity in data centers. As a proof of concept, we implement an OAI-based end-to-end virtualized mobile network, which notably confirms the accuracy of theoretical models. Performance results reveal important gains in terms of latency. This fact enables in particular a higher concentration level of VNFs in data centers, thus achieving CAPEX and OPEX reduction, and moreover, it opens the door to the cloudification of critical network functions.