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The proliferation of cloud computing techniques has created a multitude of applications for network services deployments, enabled by the adoption of Software Defined Networks (SDN) and Network Functions Virtualization (NFV) paradigms. Mobile Network Operators (MNOs) also have the opportunity to leverage these technologies to enable the delivery of traditional networking functionality making use of cloud technologies. The benefit is cost reduction in the CAPEX and OPEX of the network infrastructure. Furthermore, multiple MNOs could share Virtualized Network Functions (VNFs) while maintaining separate logical data and control planes. This work investigates how those VNFs, in particular the Evolved Packet Core (EPC) Network Service (NS), can be shared using Virtual Tenant Networks (VTN) techniques. VTN provides a logical separation between data and control plane in virtualized networks. The design, implementation, and preliminary evaluations of such deployments are showcased in this paper, using open-source tools and readily available research playgrounds.

Service Function Chaining (SFC) serves the traffic of a specific service along an ordered set of Service Functions (SFs). SFC uses Software Defined Networking (SDN) and Network Function Virtualization (NFV) technologies to reach the deployment and removal of SFC in an appropriate time with minimal costs. However, during the life time of deployed SFCs, the SFs are exposed to the risk of overloading, which results in an end-to-end packets drop and high delay at the application level. This paper presents the concept of a Scalable SFC Orchestrator capable of deploying SF Chains following the ETSI NFV architectural model, as well as orchestrating the runtime phase by rerouting the traffic to a different path in case of overload of certain SF instances. Moreover, a selection algorithm is presented to build the updated paths after scaling. The Scalable Orchestration feature is implemented and added as a main feature to an SFC Orchestrator. Furthermore, it is integrated into a current NFV architecture and evaluated in an NFV environment making use of the Fraunhofer FOKUS Open Baton toolkit in an OpenStack and Open Daylight based environment

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