FENDE: Marketplace-Based Distribution, Execution, and Life Cycle Management of VNFs

The emergence of NFV has drawn the attention of academia, standardization bodies, and industry, because of the possibility of reducing capital and operational costs while introducing innovation in computer networks. To enable developers to independently publish and distribute VNFs, marketplaces akin to online application stores are essential. Research efforts in several aspects are necessary to enable wider adoption of such online application stores in emerging NFV-based computer networks. This article reviews the historical perspective of networking paradigms and technologies to propose FENDE, a marketplace and ecosystem for the distribution and execution of VNFs and composition of service function chains. Major challenges that must be overcome to promote the adoption of marketplaces in emerging NFV-based networks are investigated and discussed.