Service Function Chaining in Next Generation Networks: State of the Art and Research Challenges

Service function chaining is a network capability that provides support for application-driven-networking through the ordered interconnection of service functions. The lifecycle management of service function chains is enabled by two recently emerged technologies, software defined networking and network function virtualization, that promise a number of efficiency, effectiveness, and flexibility gains. This article introduces a service function chaining taxonomy that considers architecture and performance dimensions as the basis for the subsequent state-of-the-art analysis. The article concludes with a gap analysis of existing solutions and the identification of future research challenges.