High-performance Network Accommodation and Intra-slice Switching Using a Type of Virtualization Node

The architecture for programmable networkvirtualization platforms, i.e., the VNode architecture, has been developed in a project called the Virtualization Node Project. This paper introduces a type of physical node called Network ACcommodation Equipment (NACE) to the VNode architecture. NACE has dual roles in this architecture. The first role is as a network-slice gateway between an external network (Ethernet/VLAN) and a slice (virtual network). NACE can accommodate a data center or another testbed in a slice with high-performance (up to 10 Gbps) data-format conversion. The second role is as a special type of virtualization node that implements intra-slice virtual switch by using Ethernet hardware, which can replace software-based switching using a VM or a network processor. These roles are modeled as a node sliver (virtual node) with a gateway function and a node sliver with a switching function (i.e., a switch node-sliver), and these node slivers are specified by using XML. These functions were evaluated by using two testbeds, and the evaluation results confirm that both functions work correctly and perform well in terms of delay and packet loss. Keywords—network virtualization; virtual network; network accommodation; network-slice gateway; virtual switch; intraslice switching