Service Function Chaining Design & Implementation Using Network Service Mesh in Kubernetes

Abstract

Service Function Chaining (SFC) in a cloud-native environment is becoming essential as more users move towards clouds today. Cloud-native environments utilize container-based microservices to provide software solutions. Integrating SFC with container-based microservices introduces new challenges. This paper exploited Network Service Mesh (NSM) framework features to create a service function chain on a multi-node Kubernetes cluster. We focus on the design and implementation of SFC in Kubernetes using NSM. Also, we deployed our custom-built containers in the Kubernetes cluster to create a service function chain. Hence, we demonstrate how an SFC is designed in a cloud-native environment rather than a traditional NFV/SDN approach. Furthermore, to evaluate the performance, we compare different frameworks that support SFC in Kubernetes, highlighting the advantage and disadvantages of each framework.