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NCaaS: network configuration as a service in SDN-driven cloud architectures

In this paper, we present NCaaS (Network Configuration as a Service), a centralized cloud service for creating Virtual Networks (VNets) in SDN-based cloud architectures. NCaaS relieves tenants from the burdens and complexities of VNet creation and management by supporting dynamic provisioning operations based on Quality of Service (QoS), pricing, privacy, reliability, and energy constraints set by the tenant. NCaaS provides a unified interface through which tenants' network specifications and constraints are fed into the service provisioning algorithms. These algorithms, in turn, handle the negotiation with the different SDN Network as a Service (NaaS) providers and dynamically apply the necessary VNet creation, partitioning, and migration mechanisms to ensure the satisfaction of the tenants' preferences. To the best of our knowledge, NCaaS is the first centralized cloud service for creating, managing, and provisioning VNets dynamically on behalf of tenants and based on their requirements. A proof of concept test bed implementation of NCaaS is provided on top of the OpenVirteX network virtualization platform.