Containerized services orchestration for edge computing in software-defined Wide Area Networks

Abstract

As SD-WAN disrupts legacy WAN technologies and becomes the preferred WAN technology adopted by corporations, and Kubernetes becomes the de-facto container orchestration tool, the opportunities for deploying edge-computing containerized applications running over SD-WAN are vast. Service orchestration in SD-WAN has not been provided with enough attention, resulting in the lack of research focused on service discovery in these scenarios. In this article, an in-house service discovery solution that works alongside Kubernetes' master node for allowing improved traffic handling and better user experience when running micro-services is developed. The service discovery solution was conceived following a design science research approach. Our research includes the implementation of a proof-of-concept SD-WAN topology alongside a Kubernetes cluster that allows us to deploy custom services and delimit the necessary characteristics of our in-house solution. Also, the implementation's performance is tested based on the required times for updating the discovery solution according to service updates. Finally, some conclusions and modifications are pointed out based on the results, while also discussing possible enhancements.