Network Function Virtualization (NFV) is an emerging technology to consolidate network functions onto high volume storages, servers and switches located anywhere in the network. Virtual Network Functions (VNFs) are chained together to provide a specific network service, called Service Function Chains (SFCs). Regarding to Quality of Service (QoS) requirements and network features and states, SFCs are served through performing two tasks: VNF placement and link embedding on the substrate networks. Reducing deployment cost is a desired objective for all service providers in cloud/edge environments to increase their profit form demanded services. However, increasing resource utilization in order to decrease deployment cost may lead to increase the service latency and consequently increase SLA violation and decrease user satisfaction. To this end, we formulate a multi-objective optimization model to joint VNF placement and link embedding in order to reduce deployment cost and service latency with respect to a variety of constraints. We, then solve the optimization problem using two heuristic-based algorithms that perform close to optimum for large scale cloud/edge environments. Since the optimization model involves conflicting objectives, we also investigate pareto optimal solution so that it optimizes multiple objectives as much as possible. The efficiency of proposed algorithms is evaluated using both simulation and emulation. The evaluation results show that the proposed optimization approach succeed in minimizing both cost and latency while the results are as accurate as optimal solution obtained by Gurobi (5%).

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Discovering insights about Virtual Network Function (VNFs) resource demand characteristics will enable cloud vendors to optimize their underlying Network Function Virtualization (NFV) system orchestration and dramatically mitigate CapEx and OpEx spendings. However, analyzing large-scale NFV systems, especially in mobile network environments, is a challenging task and requires tailor-made approaches for each particular application. In this demo, we showcase NFV-Inspector, an open source and extensible VNF analysis platform that is capable of systematically benchmark and profile NFV deployments. Based on its pluggable framework, NFV-Inspector classifies VNFs resource demand characteristics and correlate their Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) with systemlevel Quality of Service (QoS) measurements.

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Cloud native computing paradigm allows microservice-based applications to take advantage of cloud infrastructure in a scalable, reusable, and interoperable way. However, in a cloud native system, the vast number of configuration parameters and highly granular resource allocation policies can significantly impact the performance and deployment cost. For understanding and analyzing these implications in an easy, quick, and cost-effective way, we present PerfSim, a discrete-event simulator for approximating and predicting the performance of cloud native service chains in user-defined scenarios. To this end, we proposed a systematic approach for modeling the performance of microservices endpoint functions by collecting and analyzing their performance and network traces. With a combination of the extracted models and user-defined scenarios, PerfSim can then simulate the performance behavior of all services over a given period and provide an approximation for system KPIs, such as requests' average response time. Using the processing power of a single laptop, we evaluated both simulation accuracy and speed of PerfSim in 104 prevalent scenarios and compared the simulation results with the identical deployment in a real Kubernetes cluster. We achieved ∼81-99% simulation accuracy in approximating the average response time of incoming requests and ∼16-1200 times speed-up factor for the simulation.

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Graphical user interface interaction interview (GUI-ii), is a recently purposed method in which designers can remotely co-design and review GUI prototypes by eliminating the need for physical presence of co-designers. However, there are some concerns regarding the accuracy of such remote interview methods, as users do not have any physical interaction with the designers during their interview. In this work, for the first time, we compare GUI-ii methods with the traditional face-to-face interview processes to study their effectiveness in various design phases. The result shows that GUI-ii method is most effective when used in Ozlab.