ORCID
- Vasilios Kelefouras: 0000-0001-9591-913X
Abstract
Automatic network management strategies have become paramount for meeting the needs of innovative real-time and data-intensive applications, such as those in the Internet of Things. However, the ever-growing and fluctuating demands for data and services in such applications require more than ever an efficient, scalable, and energy-aware network resource management. To address these challenges, this paper introduces a novel approach that leverages a modular architecture based on serverless functions within an energy-aware environment. By deploying SDN services as Functions as a Service (FaaS), the proposed approach enables dynamic, on-demand network function deployment, achieving significant cost and energy savings through fine-grained resource provisioning. Unlike previous monolithic SDN approaches, this work disaggregates SDN control plane into modular, serverless components, transforming tightly integrated functionalities into independent, on-demand services while ensuring performance, scalability, and energy efficiency. An analytical model is presented to approximate the service delivery time and power consumption, as well as an open source prototype implementation supported by an extensive experimental evaluation. Experimental results demonstrate significant improvement in energy efficiency compared to traditional approaches, highlighting the potential of this approach for sustainable network environments.
DOI Link
Publication Date
2025-09-09
Publication Title
Future Generation Computer Systems
Volume
176
ISSN
0167-739X
Acceptance Date
2025-09-04
Deposit Date
2025-12-10
Funding
The authors would like to thank the European Next Generation Internet Program for Open INTErnet Renovation (NGI-Pointer 2) for supporting this work under contract 871528 (EDGENESS Project).
Additional Links
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0167739X25004157, https://www.scopus.com/pages/publications/105015669846
Keywords
Energy efficiency, Network function virtualisation, Network management, Serverless computing, Software Defined Networks
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License
Recommended Citation
Kelefouras, V. (2025) 'Energy efficiency support for software defined networks: a serverless computing approach', Future Generation Computer Systems, 176. Available at: 10.1016/j.future.2025.108121
