Research database

This project, “Network Functions Virtualization at the Edge of the Network” (NFV@EDGE) targets Objective 1 of the Open Call and aims at extending the current NFV infrastructure available in SoftFIRE with the capability to control resource-constrained devices, such as home gateways, which are very common at the edge of the network. In this way, an overarching orchestrator can create complex chain of services encompassing network functions running either at the edge or in the cloud, hence bringing in the benefits of edge-based services (e.g., reduced latency, no last-mile bandwidth bottleneck, better reliability) with the ones of cloud-based services (e.g., scalability, efficiency, economy of scale). NFV@EDGE will achieve its objectives by integrating a new NFV-capable platform, the Universal Node (UN), under the OpenBaton toolkit. This software is a compact software orchestrator targeted to resource-limited devices such as home/SOHO routers. Its integration in SoftFIRE will enable OpenBaton to create complex NFV services by instantiating the required NFs partly on edge-located nodes and partly on datacenters, in a transparent way with respect to the service requester.