Hash-based Load Balanced Traffic Steering on Softswitches for Chaining Virtualized Network Functions

Abstract

Prior load balancing solutions for chaining virtualized network functions cause significant control and data plane overheads and demand special requirements on network hardware. In this study, we present the design, implementation, and evaluation of Hash-based Traffic Steering on Softswitches (HATS), a load balancing mechanism that aims at mitigating such drawbacks. The method exploits flow hashing technique implemented on softswitches to perform server and network load balancing without triggering the control plane. We have implemented this design using OpenDayLight controller and Open vSwitch platform. The implementation demonstrates that HATS can be readily implemented with commodity network hardware. Furthermore, the experiment results confirm that HATS can reduce the number of flow entries and service chaining time up to 85% and 93%, respectively, when compared with Least Load First (LLF), a controller-based service chaining algorithm.