An Efficient VNF Deployment Scheme for Reliable Service Chain in Software Defined Satellite Networks

Satellite networks have the advantages of wide coverage and low deployment cost, which can be widely used in quite a few fields and will play momentous roles in next generation communication system. The rapid expansion of the satellite constellation scale not only improves the system capacity but also increases the system complexity, which brings many difficulties to the overall system design, network operation management, and efficient data transmission. Software-Defined Satellite Networks (SDSNs), as one of the most promising technologies for future networks, have the potential to improve the resource efficiency and flexibility for the satellite networks. Thus, how to allocate the resources of SDSNs efficiently to supply reliable services for different types of users is one of the key problems. Therefore, in this paper, we explore the joint optimization of virtual network function(VNF) deployment and path routing in SDSNs to ensure the traffic flows’ requirements simultaneously. Firstly, we model the VNF deployment problem as a mathematical optimization problem. Then, the optimization strategy is given for the case of multiple service chains. Finally, the effectiveness of the designed algorithm is verified by numerical simulation.