• The Journal of Korean Institute of Communications and Information Sciences
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• v.41 no.12
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• pp.1914-1924
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• 2016

In this paper, considering virtualized Evolved Packet Core(vEPC) network for 5G mobile network, we propose architecture for supporting Service Function Chaining(SFC) in 5G mobile network. Using SFC in 5G network, dynamic path configuration and providing network services based on subscriber and traffic information. SFC technology provides logical ordered set of network functions and delivers packet through providing logical path over the physical network. Based on the perspective of 5G core network in distributed manner, we design hierarchical SFC architecture to manage SFC for global path including vEPC and SGi-LAN network, and internal path between virtualized network functions in each cloud. In this paper, we define architecture and call flow for establishing data path using SFC. Finally, we design testbed architecture for real implementation based on open source software.

• The Journal of Korean Institute of Communications and Information Sciences
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• v.40 no.6
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• pp.1032-1039
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• 2015

Service function chaining(SFC) defines the creation of network services that consist of an ordered set of service function. A multiple service function instances should be deployed across networks for scalable and fault-tolerant SFC services. Therefore, an incoming flows should be distributed to multiple service function instances appropriately. In this paper, we formulate the flow distribution problem in SFC aiming at minimizing the end-to-end flow latency under resource constraints. Then, we evaluate its optimal solution in a realistic network topology generated by the GT-ITM topology generator. Simulation results reveal that the optimal solution can reduce the total flow latency significantly.

• KSII Transactions on Internet and Information Systems (TIIS)
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• v.10 no.8
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• pp.3701-3727
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• 2016

Recently Service Function Chaining (SFC) is promising to innovate the network service mode in modern networks. However, a feasible implementation of SFC is still difficult due to the need to achieve functional equivalence with traditional modes without sacrificing performance or increasing network complexity. In this paper, we present a configurable network service chaining (CNSC) mechanism to provide services for network traffics in a flexible and optimal way. Firstly, we formulate the problem of network service chaining and design an effective service chain construction framework based on integrating software-defined networking (SDN) with network functions virtualization (NFV). Then, we model the service path computation problem as an integer liner optimization problem and propose an algorithm named SPCM to cooperatively combine service function instances with a network utility maximum policy. In the procedure of SPCM, we achieve the service node mapping by defining a service capacity matrix for substrate nodes, and work out the optimal link mapping policies with segment routing. Finally, the simulation results indicate that the average request acceptance ratio and resources utilization ratio can reach above 85% and 75% by our SPCM algorithm, respectively. Upon the prototype system, it is demonstrated that CNSC outperforms other approaches and can provide flexible and scalable network services.

• KNOM Review
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• v.23 no.2
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• pp.1-10
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• 2020

Network Function Virtualization (NFV) is a key technology of 5G networks that has the advantage of enabling building and operating networks flexibly. However, NFV can complicate network management because it creates numerous virtual resources that should be managed. In NFV environments, service function chaining (SFC) composed of virtual network functions (VNFs) is widely used to apply a series of network functions to traffic. Therefore, it is required to dynamically allocate the right amount of computing resources or instances to SFC for meeting service requirements. In this paper, we propose Deep Q-Networks (DQN)-based auto-scaling to operate the appropriate number of VNF instances in SFC. The proposed approach not only resizes the number of VNF instances in SFC composed of multi-tier architecture but also selects a tier to be scaled in response to dynamic traffic forwarding through SFC.

• The Journal of Korean Institute of Communications and Information Sciences
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• v.41 no.4
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• pp.451-453
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• 2016

In this paper, we propose a Load Balance System for SFC based on DLP solution. SFC based on DLP solution does not distribute to the user data and each DLP server manages all traffic generated by the user device. When using existing algorithms such as the Load Balance Round Robin, Least Connection does not consider the resource usage of DLP server so traffic is not efficiently distributed due to different user traffic usage. It causes system failure and overload of the DLP server. Therefore, we propose the architecture of a Load Balance system for SFC based on DLP solution to perform the Load Balance based on the resource usage of DLP server through a LBM server in this paper.

• Proceedings of the Korea Information Processing Society Conference
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• 2018.05a
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• pp.65-68
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• 2018

오늘날 네트워크 서비스에 대한 수요가 증가함에 따라 네트워크 트래픽 또한 증가하고 있다. 이는 네트워크 서비스 구성을 복잡하게 만들어 최종 사용자에게 전달되는 네트워크 기능의 동적 구성이 요구된다. Service Function Chaining (SFC)은 일련의 Service Function (SF) 세트로 구성된 새로운 네트워크 서비스 배포 모델이다. SFC는 특정 서비스에 따라 플로우를 분류하여 네트워크 운영자의 효율적인 서비스 제공을 보장한다. SFC의 성능은 SFC를 구성하는 SF Instance (SFI)와 상관 관계를 가진다. 이때 다수의 SFC 환경에서 단일의 SFI 사용 시, 트래픽 오버플로우가 발생할 수 있다. 따라서, 본 논문에서는 확장 가능한 SFC 프로비저닝을 위한 Monitoring as a Service (MaaS)를 제안한다.

• KSII Transactions on Internet and Information Systems (TIIS)
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• v.12 no.10
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• pp.4640-4661
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• 2018

To cope with the explosive growth of Internet services, Service Function Chaining (SFC) based on Software-defined Networking (SDN) is an emerging and promising technology that has been suggested to meet this challenge. Determining the placement of Virtual Network Functions (VNFs) and routing paths that optimize the network utilization and resource consumption is a challenging problem, particularly without violating service level agreements (SLAs). This problem is called the optimal SFC placement problem and an Integer Linear Programming (ILP) formulation is provided. A greedy heuristic solution is also provided based on an improved two-step mapping algorithm. The obtained experimental results show that the proposed algorithm can automatically place VNFs at the optimal locations and find the optimal routing paths for each online request. This algorithm can increase the average request acceptance rate by about 17.6% and provide more than 20-fold reduction of the computational complexity compared to the Greedy algorithm. The feasibility of this approach is demonstrated via NetFPGA-10G prototype implementation.

• Proceedings of the Korea Information Processing Society Conference
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• 2018.10a
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• pp.122-125
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• 2018

최근 다양한 네트워크 서비스에 대한 수요가 증가함에 따라 Service Function (SF)의 동적 구성을 위한 유연한 모델이 요구된다. Service Function Chaining (SFC)은 일련의 SF로 구성된 새로운 네트워크 서비스 배포 모델을 정의한다. Software Defined Networking (SDN)은 제어 평면을 중앙 집중화함으로써 네트워크 트래픽 제어를 단순화하여 SFC동작에 중요한 역할을 한다. SDN 기반 SFC(SD_SFC)는 SF 장애를 감지하기 위한 모니터링 시스템이 필요하다. 그러나 기존의 모니터링 방식은 모든 SF에 Monitoring Agent(MA)를 배치하기 때문에 높은 시그널링 비용을 가진다. 본 논문에서는 최소한의 SF에 MA를 배치함으로써 시그널링 비용을 줄이는 SFC모니터링 방식을 제안한다. 제안하는 SF selection 알고리즘은 최적화된 SF 집합을 사용하여 오버로드된 SF를 반환하여 MA를 배치한다. 우리는 제안 시스템의 효율성을 평가하기 위해 테스트베드 구현을 통해 실험하였다. 실험 결과에 따르면 우리는 기존 방식에 비해서 시그널링 비용을 59.2% 절감하였다.

• KSII Transactions on Internet and Information Systems (TIIS)
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• v.14 no.2
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• pp.577-594
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• 2020

Service Function Chaining (SFC) supports services through linking an ordered list of functions. There may be multiple instances of the same function, which provides a challenge to select available instances for all the functions in an SFC and generate a specific Service Function Path (SFP). Aiming to solve the problem of SFP selection, we propose an architecture consisting of distributed SFP algorithm and central control mechanism. Nodes generate distributed routings based on the first function and destination node in each service request. Controller supervises all of the distributed routing tables and modifies paths as required. The architecture is scalable, robust and quickly reacts to failures because of distributed routings. Besides, it enables centralized and direct control of the forwarding behavior with the help of central control mechanism. Simulation results show that distributed routing tables can generate efficient SFP and the average cost is acceptable. Compared with other algorithms, our design has a good performance on average cost of paths and load balancing, and the response delay to service requests is much lower.

• Information and Communications Magazine
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• v.31 no.9
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• pp.46-51
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• 2014

미래지향적 네트워크 및 서비스 인프라의 구축을 위해 네트워크의 개방화와 가상화에 대한 관심이 높아졌다. 이를 지원하는 기술로서 SDN (Software-defined Networking) 및 NFV(Network Function Virtualisation) 기술이 소개되었다. 특히 트래픽에 따라 필요한 네트워크 기능들을 선택적으로 조합 및 실행하여 하나의 네트워크 서비스를 구현하는 서비스 체이닝(Service Chaining 혹은 Service Function Chaining) 기술이 높은 관심을 받고 있다. 이를 통해 컴포넌트 서비스들로 이루어진 경로를 정의함으로써 네트워크 서비스를 적시에 구성 및 능동적으로 제어할 수 있다. 본 고에서는 서비스 체이닝 기술의 기본 개념및 기능에 대해 간략히 소개하고, 주요 기능의 표준화를 담당하는 IETF SFC WG 의 주요 표준화 이슈에 대한 분석 및 향후 전망을 기술한다.