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).