Service function chaining (SFC), consisting of a sequence of
virtual network functions (VNFs) (i.e., firewalls and load balancers), is
an effective service provision technique in modern data center networks.
By requiring cloud user traffic to traverse the VNFs in order, SFC im-
proves the security and performance of the cloud user applications. In
this paper, we study how to place an SFC inside a data center to mini-
mize the network traffic of the virtual machine (VM) communication. We
take a cooperative multi-agent reinforcement learning approach, wherein
multiple agents collaboratively figure out the traffic-efficient route for the
VM communication.
Underlying the SFC placement is a fundamental graph-theoretical prob-
lem called the k-stroll problem. Given a weighted graph G(V, E), two
nodes s, t ∈ V , and an integer k, the k-stroll problem is to find the
shortest path from s to t that visits at least k other nodes in the graph.
Our work is the first to take a multi-agent learning approach to solve k-
stroll problem. We compare our learning algorithm with an optimal and
exhaustive algorithm and an existing dynamic programming(DP)-based
heuristic algorithm. We show that our learning algorithm, although lack-
ing the complete knowledge of the network assumed by existing research,
delivers comparable or even better VM communication time while taking
two orders of magnitude of less execution time.
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Shortest Path and Maximum Flow Problems Under Service Function Chaining Constraints
With the advent of Network Function Virtualization (NFV), Physical Network Functions (PNFs) are gradually being replaced by Virtual Network Functions (VNFs) that are hosted on general purpose servers. Depending on the call flows for specific services, the packets need to pass through an ordered set of network functions (physical or virtual) called Service Function Chains (SFC) before reaching the destination. Conceivably for the next few years during this transition, these networks would have a mix of PNFs and VNFs, which brings an interesting mix of network problems that are studied in this paper: (1) How to find an SFC-constrained shortest path between any pair of nodes? (2) What is the achievable SFC-constrained maximum flow? (3) How to place the VNFs such that the cost (the number of nodes to be virtualized) is minimized, while the maximum flow of the original network can still be achieved even under the SFC constraint? In this work, we will try to address such emerging questions. First, for the SFC-constrained shortest path problem, we propose a transformation of the network graph to minimize the computational
complexity of subsequent applications of any shortest path algorithm. Second, we formulate the SFC-constrained maximum flow problem as a fractional multicommodity flow problem, and develop a combinatorial algorithm for a special case of practical
interest. Third, we prove that the VNFs placement problem is NP-hard and present an alternative Integer Linear Programming (ILP) formulation. Finally, we conduct simulations to elucidate our theoretical results.
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- Award ID(s):
- 1717108
- NSF-PAR ID:
- 10073233
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- IEEE INFOCOM 2018 - IEEE Conference on Computer Communications
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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