Storage Protection with Connectivity and Processing Restoration for Survivable Cloud Services

The operation and management of software-based communication systems and services is a big challenge for infrastructure and service providers. The challenge is mainly associated with the more significant number of configurable elements and the higher dynamicity in the software-based systems than the classical ones. On the other hand, the modularity and programmability in software-based networks enabled by technologies like Software-Defined Networking (SDN) and Network Function Virtualization (NFV) provide new opportunities for operators to realize advanced network and service management strategies beyond the classical techniques. In our work, we elaborate on these new opportunities and propose a novel strategy for the management of survivable cloud services. In particular, we leverage the flexibility of SDN and NFV to combine proactive protection and reactive restoration mechanisms, and we put forward a novel strategy for enhancing the survivability of cloud services. Through comprehensive evaluations, we demonstrate that the proposed strategy offers significant benefits in terms of availability and restorability of services while reducing, at the same time, the overhead caused by the relocation of cloud services in case of failures.