This article presents the progressive evolution of NFV from the initial SDN-agnostic initiative to a fully SDN-enabled NFV solution, where SDN is not only used as infrastructure support but also influences how virtual network functions (VNFs) are designed. In the latest approach, when possible, stateless processing in the VNF shifts from the computing element to the networking element. To support these claims, the article presents the implementation of a flow-based network access control solution, with an SDN-enabled VNF built on IEEE 802.1x, which establishes services as sets of flow definitions that are authorized as the result of an end user authentication process. Enforcing the access to the network is done at the network element, while the authentication and authorization state is maintained at the compute element. The application of this proposal allows the performance to be enhanced, while traffic in the control channel is reduced to a minimum. The SDN-enabled NFV approach sets the foundation to increase the areas of application of NFV, in particular in those areas where massive stateless processing of packets is expected.

The Internet of Things (IoT) has become an essential part of our society. IoT devices are used in our houses, hospitals, cars, industry, etc., making our lives easier. Nonetheless, there are a number of serious concerns about security, privacy and performance issues in IoT. It has been proven that the aforementioned issues are strictly related to the high degree of centralisation of current IoT architecture. Thus, there is an increasing interest in adopting blockchain in IoT. However, blockchain adoption is not straightforward due to the power, storage and computational limitations of IoT. Consequently, the concept of lightweight blockchain is getting more and more attention from researchers and engineers. In this paper, we conduct a systematic literature review on the lightweight blockchain concept for IoT following the PRISMA methodology. We systematically analyse “lightweight blockchain for IoT” proposals in order to better understand the limitations of blockchain for IoT, the characteristics of the current work on this topic and further research opportunities. Specifically, we analyse the definition of lightweight blockchain that other authors give, the characteristics of the reviewed proposals, their “lightweight” aspects and their evaluation. Finally, we discuss the results of the review along with further research opportunities. Consequently, this work is mostly focused on understanding the technical and performance-related aspects of blockchain for IoT as a prelude to more specific analysis such as security (i.e., attacks, vulnerabilities, etc.).

The telecommunications landscape has been undergoing a major shift in recent years. Initially Software Defined Networking (SDN), and then Network Function Virtualization (NFV) have opened up new ways of looking at the increasingly demanding service provider scenario. The description of the service to be provided will be a key point determining the success in the integration and interoperability of the different proposals. However, the refined understanding of the future scenario and its requirements has recently introduced unique challenges in the path to fully achieve the benefits of the NFV vision. In this paper we review the proposals of service description in the main initiatives related to the NFV arena. Then we elaborate on key novel challenges and evaluate how the different proposals solve them. Finally, we propose a straw man model of service and resource description addressing these challenges and defining the features that would serve as design directions for future initiatives and updates in this topic.

The incoming smart Industry 4.0 envisions fully interconnected scenarios to boost the efficiency, quality and performance of industrial processes. In this context, communication technologies play a pivotal role as the key tool that enables the interconnection among a priori isolated business processes, making the most of them and resulting in more powerful business-level applications and decision-making. In this paper, we present the application of two cutting-edge telecommunication technologies, namely, network function virtualization (NFV) and software-defined networking (SDN), to the manufacturing industry, showing how these technologies can help improve manufacturing processes. We introduce the SN4I (Smart Networks for Industry) experimental facility, which is an NFV- and SDN-aware communication network that connects the University of the Basque Country with the Aeronautics Advanced Manufacturing Centre. In this regard, NFV provides a flexible way to deploy virtual services, while SDN allows the programming of network elements to interconnect these virtual services by means of virtual links or virtual networks. Both technologies guarantee full data and performance level isolation, ensuring that virtual services running over the same physical hardware or virtual links deployed over the same physical network will never interfere with one another. With the integration of NFV and SDN in manufacturing networks, the design, evaluation and deployment time of services that include computational, storage and networking resources is drastically decreased, facilitating innovation and optimizing network and hardware resource utilization. Key Words: 5G, experimental facility, Industry 4.0, manufacturing network function virtualization (NFV), software-defined networking (SDN)

Quick handling of link failures remains a challenging issue in current communication networks, although it is crucial to many routing algorithms. Link failures are the leading cause of packet losses and delays, therefore, failure recovery is tied to stringent requirements for certain services, such as the sub-50 millisecond completion time for carrier-grade networks, which is sometimes difficult to achieve in traditional routing schemes. For this reason, fast recovery strategies are key pillars of modern communication networks. In this paper, we demonstrate the benefits of the devices with Programmable Data Planes (PDP) for fast reacting to link failures. We first review the link failure detection, reaction and recovery procedures and then we discuss the main fast failure recovery mechanisms employed by different types of devices in current communication networks. In addition, we present a novel method to measure the link failure reaction time of an Intel Tofino switch with PDP, as well as the results obtained when measuring such time using real hardware equipment. Our results show that such hardware devices provide a failure reaction time in the order of microseconds, with an average of 472.88 $$\upmu $$μ s, which poses PDP as a key technology to achieve zero packet loss and zero delay failure recovery.