NFV Based Gateways for Virtualized Wireless Sensors Networks: A Case Study

摘要

Virtualization enables the sharing of a same wireless sensor network (WSN) bymultiple applications. However, in heterogeneous environments, virtualizedwireless sensor networks (VWSN) raises new challenges such as the need foron-the-fly, dynamic, elastic and scalable provisioning of gateways. NetworkFunctions Virtualization (NFV) is an emerging paradigm that can certainly aidin tackling these new challenges. It leverages standard virtualizationtechnology to consolidate special-purpose network elements on top of commodityhardware. This article presents a case study on NFV based gateways for VWSNs.In the study, a VWSN gateway provider, operates and manages an NFV basedinfrastructure. We use two different brands of wireless sensors. The NFVinfrastructure makes possible the dynamic, elastic and scalable deployment ofgateway modules in this heterogeneous VWSN environment. The prototype builtwith Openstack as platform is described.