In the context of edge computing, service migration between servers may be needed, for example, to support end user mobility or for load balancing purposes. In this work, we propose a novel solution for service continuity in the presence of workload migration at the edge, which leverages Segment Routing (SR) over IPv6 (SRv6) for packet steering, Software Defined Networking (SDN) and the P4 language for network configuration and programmability, and Network Function Virtualization (NFV) for buffering packets during workload migration. We evaluate our approach on a testbed wherein we use ONOS as SDN controller, and exploit Mininet to emulate the core network of P4 BMv2 switches. We analyze the performance of our SRv6 solution against a non-SRv6 alternative that uses IPv6 routing mechanism. Results highlight the scalability and flexibility of the proposed solution compared to the state of the art.
"Keyworks: {Edge Computing; NFV; SDN; Service Continuity; SRv6}"
