On End-to-End Protection of Service Function Chain

Network Function Virtualization (NFV) is transforming network architectures by decoupling network functions from proprietary hardware, enabling their implementation as software instances on cost-effective commodity servers. This paradigm shift enables on-demand service creation through the dynamic chaining of Virtual Network Functions (VNFs). However, ensuring service continuity in NFV environments presents unique challenges. This paper addresses the critical issue of end-to-end 1+1 protection for Service Function Chains (SFCs) by proposing a novel approach based on calculating two disjoint provisioning paths. We introduce an innovative heuristic algorithm that iteratively computes k successive provisionings, where k is a fixed parameter, first maximizing protection level and then minimizing resource utilization. Our approach is founded on the principle that each newly computed provisioning improves the existing solution in terms of either protection ratio or cost efficiency. Through extensive simulations on diverse network topologies, we validate our heuristic’s convergence and effectiveness. Results demonstrate significant improvements in both protection coverage and cost optimization compared to traditional methods that simply determine two maximally disjoint paths.