Abstract

The emergence of innovative holographic applications, such as holographic concerts, have requirements on network infrastructure such as high bandwidth and ultra-low latency. As demonstrated in recent research, for efficient provisioning of these types of applications, we require a Hybrid Network Function Virtualization (NFV) / IN-Network Computing (INC) network infrastructures.
INC, a novel technology, distributes computational workloads across the network by deploying computational tasks on programmable devices like routers and switches. However, integrating INC into existing infrastructure presents significant challenges in terms of life-cycle management and orchestration of network functions and components. The network functions in these hybrid environments consist of two types of components, including VNFs and INCs. While the ETSI Management and Orchestration (MANO) framework enables application provisioning in NFV-enabled networks, it does not provide support for INC-enabled environments. Therefore it is necessary to develop a new MANO architecture capable of provisioning applications that incorporate both VNF and INC components.
The main contribution of this thesis is twofold. First, we propose a novel hybrid NFV-INC MANO architecture which is specifically designed for provisioning holographic applications within a hybrid NFV/INC environment. This architecture builds upon the foundation established by the ETSI NFV MANO framework. Second, the proposed architecture is prototyped and measurements are made to evaluate the deployment time of the hybrid Network Services and showing that deploying INC components takes less time than deploying VNFs.
The essential NFV-INC MANO functional entities, such as INC management module, NFV-INC orchestration, and INC infrastructure manager are identified. In addition, a set of RESTful interfaces is proposed to enable interaction with components.
To validate the proposed concept, the prototype is constructed utilizing Open Source MANO (OSM) for orchestration and management network services. Microk8s is employed for container orchestration, automating the deployment of Kubernetes Network Functions (KNFs). Also, the Mininet emulator prepares the programmable switches which serve as the INC infrastructure. The performance of the proposed architecture is evaluated through comprehensive measurements. Additionally, the architecture is validated by concrete measurements on the deployment latency for five different test cases.