Network virtualization in data centers: A data plane perspective

Abstract

In this chapter we discuss two aspects of network virtualization in modern data centers: (1) network link virtualization and (2) network node virtualization. By virtualizing physical network links, each virtual network may obtain a slice of network links and build its own logical topology out of the shared physical topology. In network node virtualization, a physical networking device is logically partitioned so that each virtual network has its own slice of the device. We identify the key challenges on the data plane associated with these two aspects of network virtualization as (1) flexible flow matching and (2) resource consolidation, respectively. We give an overview on the state-of-the-art solutions for the two problems. We also provide our insights on future research in this field.