Network functions (e.g., firewalls, load balancers, etc.) have beentraditionally provided through proprietary hardware appliances. Often, hardwareappliances need to be hardwired back to back to form a service chain providingchained network functions. Hardware appliances cannot be provisioned on demandsince they are statically embedded in the network topology, making creation,insertion, modification, upgrade, and removal of service chains complex, andalso slowing down service innovation. Hence, network operators are starting todeploy Virtual Network Functions (VNFs), which are virtualized over commodityhardware. VNFs can be deployed in Data Centers (DCs) or in Network FunctionVirtualization (NFV) capable network elements (nodes) such as routers andswitches. NFV capable nodes and DCs together form a Network enabled Cloud (NeC)that helps to facilitate the dynamic service chaining required to supportevolving network traffic and its service demands. In this study, we focus onthe VNF service chain placement and traffic routing problem, and build a modelfor placing a VNF service chain while minimizing network resource consumption.Our results indicate that a NeC having a DC and NFV capable nodes cansignificantly reduce network-resource consumption.
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