A WAN Infrastructure Manager Prototype for QoS-based Multi-Site SDN-Enabled NFV Orchestration

Abstract The combination of Network Function Virtualization (NFV) and Software Defined Networking (SDN) enables the deployment of network functions as software components across interconnected telco clouds. Although this approach facilitates the dynamic and efficient management of these functions according to the guidelines of the ETSI NFV management and orchestration (MANO) framework, it brings new challenges in terms of service requirements fulfillment and QoS satisfaction. In this paper, we start by providing an overview of Network Service orchestration and its essential features within multi-site ETSI NFV infrastructures. Subsequently, we introduce a QoS-based WAN Infrastructure Manager (Q-WIM), an open-source prototype of a WIM designed for SDN-based networks. Q-WIM enables the orchestration and deployment of end-to-end Network Services in multi-site NFV environments. In addition to adhering to the standard, Q-WIM advances the State-of-the-Art by incorporating QoS-based capabilities to deploy network services with new features suited for complex scenarios (i.e., bandwidth isolation, delay guarantees). The proposed Q-WIM was implemented and experimentally tested within an emulated virtualized environment with realistic configurations, demonstrating its efficiency in terms of response time and fulfillment of QoS requirements.