Implementing Internet of Things Service Platforms with Network Function Virtualization Serverless Technologies

The need for adaptivity and scalability in telecommunication systems has led to the introduction of a software-based approach to networking, in which network functions are virtualized and implemented in software modules, based on network function virtualization (NFV) technologies. The growing demand for low latency, efficiency, flexibility and security has placed some limitations on the adoption of these technologies, due to some problems of traditional virtualization solutions. However, the introduction of lightweight virtualization approaches is paving the way for new and better infrastructures for implementing network functions. This article discusses these new virtualization solutions and shows a proposal, based on serverless computing, that uses them to implement container-based virtualized network functions for the delivery of advanced Internet of Things (IoT) services. It includes open source software components to implement both the virtualization layer, implemented through Firecracker, and the runtime environment, based on Kata containers. A set of experiments shows that the proposed approach is fast, in order to boost new network functions, and more efficient than some baseline solutions, with minimal resource footprint. Therefore, it is an excellent candidate to implement NFV functions in the edge deployment of serverless services for the IoT.