Service chaining is an emerging architecture from the trend of Software Defined Networking and Network Functions Virtualization. This architecture is expected to improve network flexibility and reduce equipment and operational costs. However, recent approaches for service chaining require new networking technologies that need to be standardized, implemented and developed. In this paper, we present and demonstrate a scalable and deployable service chaining architecture, called FlowFall. FlowFall does not require any novel technologies, only requires OpenFlow and current Virtual Machines as Virtual Network Function. Moreover, we focus on the NFV backbone network and how to achieve scale-out its performance. We describe the approach of FlowFall and an evaluation in which our method achieves 10-gigabit wire-rate throughput with 128-byte packets on a single Hyper Visor and scale-out performance among multiple Hyper Visors. Finally, we demonstrate a proof-of-concept of FlowFall in an actual service network at Interop Tokyo 2015 ShowNet.

The approach of deploying hybrid wide-area Open-Flow networks is essentially important for gradual deployment of the OpenFlow technology into existing wide-area networks because it is impractical to replace such wide-area networks with OpenFlow-enabled ones at once. On the other hand, the design, deployment, and operation of such hybrid OpenFlow networks are often conducted intuitively without in-depth technical considerations. In this paper, we discuss systematically the technical and architectural aspects of hybrid OpenFlow networks based on the experiences obtained so far in the development of our wide-area hybrid OpenFlow networks on JGN2plus/JGN-X, which is nation-wide network testbed in Japan. We also describe the design and operation of RISE (Research Infrastructure for large-Scale network Experiments) on JGN-X, whose objective is to support a variety of OpenFlow network experiments.

OpenFlow is a promising candidate for future Internet technology. In the US, OpenFlow-based networks have been installed on several university campuses recently. However, we perceive that there is no structured approach to the operation and management of large-scale OpenFlow-based networks and there are few actual achievements of carrying business traffic on them. The focus of this study is on developing a management scheme of global OpenFlow-based networks integrated into the existing Ethernet-based networks using the tunneling technology. We deployed a nation-wide OpenFlow-based network on the NICT JGN2plus testbed, and demonstrated a high-quality real-time video streaming application to verify the performance and reliability of large-scale OpenFlow-based networks. We also describe the details of technical issues we confronted in the trial operation.