Network function virtualization: Challenges and directions for reliability assurance

Network Function Virtualization (NFV) is an emerging solution that aims at improving the flexibility, the efficiency and the manageability of networks, by leveraging virtualization and cloud computing technologies to run network appliances in software. Nevertheless, the 'notarization' of network functions imposes software reliability concerns on future networks, which will be exposed to software issues arising from virtualization technologies. In this paper, we discuss the challenges for reliability in NFVIs, and present an industrial research project on their reliability assurance, which aims at developing novel fault injection technologies and systematic guidelines for this purpose.