Decentralized Certificate Management for Network Function Virtualisation (NFV) Implementation in Telecommunication Networks

The certificate management complexity and cost increase when PKI technology is leveraged into Network Function Virtualisation (NFV), a significant enabling technology for 5G networks. The expected security of PKI cannot be met due to the unavailability of the certificate revocation inquiry in the telecommunication operator’s core network. This paper analyses the issues and challenges during the NFV implementation and proposes a blockchain-based decentralized NFV certificate management mechanism. During instantiation, the Virtual Network Functions (VNF) instance generates certificates according to the certificate profile provided in the VNF package. The certificate management unit is responsible for the certificate enrolment, renewal, and revocation. The certificates submitted to the decentralized certificate management system by the instance will be recorded into the ledger after validation and consensus. The experiment and analysis show the transaction throughput, and the transaction delay is noncritical in practice, which could be fulfilled by the proposed mechanism. The certificate inquiry performance is critical, which can be facilitated by the decentralized deployment of inquiry nodes.

A Proof-of-Concept Demonstration of Isolated and Encrypted Service Function Chains

Contemporary Service Function Chaining (SFC), and the requirements arising from privacy concerns, call for the increasing integration of security features such as encryption and isolation across Network Function Virtualisation (NFV) domains. Therefore, suitable adaptations of automation and encryption concepts for the development of interconnected data centre infrastructures are essential. Nevertheless, packet isolation constraints related to the current NFV infrastructure and SFC protocols, render current NFV standards insecure. Accordingly, the goal of our work was an experimental demonstration of a new SFC packet forwarding standard that enables contemporary data centres to overcome these constraints. This article presents a comprehensive view of the developed architecture, focusing on the elements that constitute a new forwarding standard of encrypted SFC packets. Through a Proof-of-Concept demonstration, we present our closing experimental results of how the architecture fulfils the requirements defined in our use case.