NFVMP: An Architecture for NFV Applications from Multiple Providers

With the evolution of Network Function Virtualization (NFV), small- and medium-size enterprises are increasingly outsourcing their network functions (NFs) to the cloud. In order to obtain cost-effective and high-performance services, customers may utilize NFs from various cloud providers. Current NFV architectures are mostly designed on the assumption of one provider, which utilize centralized controllers for orchestration. In multi-provider scenario, autonomy of each provider leads to infeasibility of a centralized controller. In this paper, we propose NFVMP, a novel NFV architecture that enables cooperation of providers to compose intended chains, while maintaining dependency of each provider. NFVMP adopts a fresh view that regards the sub-chain of each provider as first-class entity, and supports sub-chain composition and flexibility. We implement a prototype, which demonstrates that NFVMP supports correct chain deployment across providers with a negligible performance overhead on latency and throughput.