This work presents a novel approach for managing and orchestrating Virtual Network Functions (VNFs) across cloud domains. We introduce deployable Sidecar VNF (S-VNF) coordinators designed for seamless integration into existing infrastructure, enabling operators to leverage infrastructure services provided by different providers. This approach offers several advantages beyond flexibility: domain-specific adaptation to diverse environments, non-intrusive deployment minimizing disruption to existing NFV Management and Orchestration (MANO) systems, enhanced MANO interoperability, and improved security through proxying and shielding the underlying MANO management interface. Experiments confirm that the delay introduced by our S-VNF coordinators has a negligible impact on overall performance, making it a viable solution for cross-cloud VNF management.

Network Function Virtualization (NFV) is a hot topic in computer networking and aims to replace proprietary, hardware-based networking services with virtualized, cloud-based network functions. However, the current implementation of NFV Management and Orchestration (MANO) often relies on either expensive or high-overhead cloud resources, such as AWS and OpenStack, as the NFV infrastructure (NFVI), which may limit research and deployment in edge computing scenarios. To address this issue, our work proposes a cost-effective solution to set up an NFVI suitable for both testbed research and production edge deployment. We suggest using a cluster of Raspberry Pi (RPi) powered by Canonical Metal-as-a-Service (MAAS) as a bare-metal cloud infrastructure to establish an NFVI for Virtual Network Functions (VNF) deployment from Open-Source MANO (OSM).

In this paper, we derive the exact outage probability of a hybrid satellite-terrestrial cooperative system (HSTCS). A selective decode-and-forward scheme is implemented between a source node (the satellite) and a destination node (a terrestrial station), and a selection of the best relay terminal is performed. In this proposed system, a two time-slot scenario is considered. During the first time slot, the satellite is broadcasting the information to the terrestrial relays and the destination. In the second time slot, only the best relay is transmitting toward the destination node. Then, both signals are combined using the maximum ratio combining (MRC) technique. The analytical expression of the outage probability is evaluated and is then verified with the simulation. The results show that our analytical expression matched well to the simulation results.

In this paper, we study the Symbol Error Probability (SEP) performance of a hybrid/integrated satellite-terrestrial cooperative network. In particular, we focus on the case of mobile relays that forward the satellite signal to a masked mobile destination node. The Selective Decode-and-Forward (SDF) transmission scheme is implemented and only the relay nodes which can successfully decode the satellite message are selected to retransmit the signal. The destination node exploits the spatial diversity advantages by implementing a typical Maximum Ratio Combining (MRC) technique. The closed-form expressions for the exact average SEP of the arbitrary M-ary phase shift keying and M-ary quadrature amplitude modulation signaling with MRC diversity reception over independent but not necessarily identically distributed fading channels are derived using a Moment Generating Function (MGF) approach. These closed-form expressions are represented in terms of a finite sum of Lauricella hypergeometric functions. The analytical expressions show excellent agreement with the simulation results. Numerical results show that for a system using QPSK under the frequent heavy shadowed fading condition, the diversity gain of approximately 7 dB can be obtained at the SEP of 10-1with respect to the direct transmission, when only one relay is used. It increases to around 12 dB in the case of 3 relays.