Process Enactment with Traceability Support for NFV Systems

Abstract

The Network Functions Virtualization (NFV) paradigm is heading towards an evolution with the recent zero-touch automation initiative. In particular, automating the orchestration and management of network services (NS) could progress rapidly with the help of model-driven engineering methods and tools. We have earlier proposed an integrated process modelling and enactment environment, MAPLE, for NS management. In our approach, enactment is enabled by transformation chaining and megamodelling. In this paper, we present our extension, MAPLE-T, which incorporates traceability information generation and analysis support in MAPLE. MAPLE-T allows the generation of both local and global traceability information during the enactment of a process model (PM), all of which is retained in the megamodel. The megamodel enables end-to-end navigation of the source and target artifacts in the PM and thus allows advanced traceability analysis to be carried out. We applied MAPLE-T on a NS design process to demonstrate the application of the change impact analysis feature.