Prototype of an ICN based approach for flexible service chaining in SDN

Abstract

With the widespread use of middleboxes in communication networks (e.g., for services such as Firewall, DPI, accounting, proxies, caching), additional processing beyond simple forwarding has become common. With the emergence of Network Function Virtualization (NFV), dynamically instantiating these functions becomes even more feasible. In addition, chaining such services for packet flows is key to efficiently delivering Internet services. In addition, Software Defined Networking (SDN) gives Internet Service Providers greater flexibility to provision such middlebox based services and route flows through them. However, with the dynamic instantiation of network functions, efficient and scalable use of these services requires separation of the services from their location. In this work, we implement and demonstrate an Information Centric Networking based solution that complements SDN for service chaining and provides benefits such as scalability, flexibility and reliability.