Providing a Sliced, Secure, and Isolated Software Infrastructure of Virtual Functions Through Blockchain Technology

Abstract

Network slicing, network function virtualization (NFV), and software defined network (SDN) technologies provide agile on-demand end-to-end services. The identification of a faulty virtual function becomes mandatory because services allocate resources across a distributed and trustless environment composed by multi-tenant competing service providers. In this paper, we propose and develop a blockchain-based architecture to provide auditability to orchestration operations of network slices and to provide secure VNF configuration updates while ensuring isolation and privacy between network slices. A proof of concept prototype using the Hyperledger Fabric platform was developed in which network slice runs on an isolated channel. The results show that we can secure a network slice creation, but that the consensus and the number of transaction required by the slices are a great challenge.