Hierarchical Distributed Overarching Architecture of Decoupled Federation and Orchestration Frameworks for Multidomain NFV MANOs

The European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI) has developed network function virtualization (NFV) management and orchestration (MANO) for operators to enable quick adaptation of deployment and to reduce the management costs of virtual network functions (VNFs). For scalable and flexible management across transport, cloud, and edge infrastructures, the NFV MANO has been extended into multidomain architectures with network-cloud/edge convergence. In this article, a novel hierarchical distributed overarching architecture of decoupled federation and orchestration frameworks for multidomain ETSI-compliant NFV MANOs is proposed. The proposed architecture can minimize overhead costs for the scalable exchange of abstracted vertical service information through hierarchical brokering and can enable flexible federation through distributed binding among multiple domains. The proposed architecture deploys end-to-end services in single and multiple domains for vertical industries, activates their service processes in a holistic way, and enables operational independence with administrative autonomy. This article serves as an important and necessary step toward the cloud-native design and implementation of federation and orchestration frameworks for multidomain NFV MANOs.