Journal of Network and Computer Applications 197 (2022) 103269

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Journal of Network and Computer Applications

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Efficient solutions to the placement and chaining problem of User Plane

Functions in 5G networks
Irian Leyva-Pupo ∗, Cristina Cervelló-Pastor
Department of Network Engineering, Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya (UPC), 08860, Castelldefels, Spain

ARTICLE INFO ABSTRACT

Keywords: This study attempts to solve the placement and chaining problem of 5G User Plane Functions (UPFs) in a
5G Multi-access Edge Computing (MEC) ecosystem. The problem is formalized as a multi-objective Integer Linear
User Plane Function Programming (ILP) model targeted at optimizing provisioning costs and quality of service. Our model takes
Service Function Chaining
into account several aspects of the system such as UPF-specific considerations, the Service Function Chain
ILP
(SFC) requests topology (single and multiple branches), Virtual Network Function (VNF) order constraints,
Simulated annealing
service demands, and physical network capacities. Since the formulated problem is NP-hard, two heuristic
solutions are devised to enhance solution efficiency. Specifically, an algorithm called Priority and Cautious-
UPF Placement and Chaining (PC-UPC) and a simulated annealing (SA) meta-heuristic are proposed. Through
extensive simulation experiments, we evaluated the performance of the proposed solutions. The results revealed
that our solutions outperformed the baselines (i.e., two greedy-based heuristics and a variant of the classical
SA) and that we had obtained nearly optimal solutions with significant reductions in running time. Moreover,
the PC-UPC algorithm can effectively avoid SFC rejections and improve provisioning costs by considering
session requirements, current network conditions, and the effects of VNF mapping decisions. Additionally, the
proposed SA approach incorporates several mechanisms (e.g., variable Markov chain length and restart–stop)
that allow the improvement of not only the quality of the solutions but also their computation time.

1. Introduction
5G and beyond networks are expected to support diverse use cases
and services with different requirements and characteristics. Among
those requirements, user-experienced data rate (0.1–1 Gbps), connec-
tion density (millions of devices per 𝑘𝑚2 ), and end-to-end (E2E) la-
tency (less than 1 ms) are the three most fundamental ones (Liu and
Jiang, 2016). To achieve such goals in a cost-effective manner, radical
transformations and optimization in several aspects of the system are
required. In a nutshell, the envisioned system must be flexible, scalable,
adaptable, secure, programmable, and above all feasible to deploy.
In this vein, technologies such as Network Function Virtualization
(NFV), Software-Defined Networking (SDN), and Multi-access Edge
Computing (MEC), to name just a few, have been defined as key
enablers (5G Americas, 2017; Blanco et al., 2017).
SDN and NFV (Yousaf et al., 2017) allow for flexible and cost-
effective networks. Specifically, SDN provides network programmabil-
ity by decoupling the control and user planes, whereas NFV (Mijumbi
et al., 2016) enables the implementation of network functions as soft-
ware instances (i.e., Virtual Network Functions, VNFs) that can be
instantiated on-demand on commodity hardware at the most suitable
locations. Additionally, MEC (Hu et al., 2015; Kiran et al., 2020) brings
computing, storage, and networking resources closer to users, reducing
network response time and backhaul traffic and enhancing security.
Therefore, the combination of these technologies allows the optimiza-
tion of network resources through the virtualization, disaggregation,
and placement of network functions at the network edge.
Specifically, by placing User Plane Functions (UPFs) (3GPP, 2020a;
Jun et al., 2020) and applications at the network edge, service la-
tency and bandwidth requirements can be met since the length of the
routing path is significantly reduced. UPFs represent the evolution of
traditional Serving Gateway (SGW) and Packet Gateway (PGW) toward
5G networks under the concept of control and user plane separation
(CUPS). However, unlike traditional networks where a Packet Data Unit
(PDU) session is served by a unique PGW and SGW, in 5G networks,
a PDU session can be assigned to multiple UPFs simultaneously. The
reason for this is that 5G standards allow UPFs to be divided into
different functional roles (microservices) that can be chained together
and steered as required.
However, the placement and chaining of UPFs in a MEC ecosystem
is challenging due to numerous aspects and involved trade-offs. While

∗ Corresponding author.
E-mail addresses: irian.leyva@entel.upc.edu (I. Leyva-Pupo), cristina@entel.upc.edu (C. Cervelló-Pastor).

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jnca.2021.103269
Received 16 April 2021; Received in revised form 30 September 2021; Accepted 27 October 2021
Available online 8 November 2021
1084-8045/© 2021 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license
(http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).
I. Leyva-Pupo and C. Cervelló-Pastor
deployment applications and network functions (e.g., UPFs) to the
network edge often leads to reduced latency as well as improved
reliability, throughput, and fault tolerance, it still comes at the expense
of increased costs since this approach implies a higher number of
deployed instances. Besides, in edge-based systems where the number
of embedded computational nodes is in the order of thousands, the cost
is generally much higher than in traditional cloud services (Chalapathi
et al., 2021). By contrast, expenditures could be reduced by minimizing
the number of deployed UPFs or consolidating multiple instances on
the same edge node, but this is at the risk of deteriorating the quality
of the services (QoS) or failing to meet their requirements. Thus,
a fair trade-off between meeting 5G services stringent demands and
their associated costs needs to be found. Moreover, the placement of
network functions at the network edge is challenging not only because
of its limited resources but also due to the high number of possible
locations that add to the problem complexity. Another major challenge
that arises is the existence of different types of UPFs with diverse
and specific requirements that need to be chained in a specific order
and by accounting for their inter-dependency. Thus, we tackle the
problem of determining the optimal placement and chaining of UPFs,
at the network edge, so that 5G service requirements are satisfied while
minimizing expenditures. In this regard, the main contributions of this
paper can be summarized as follows:
• The UPF Placement and Chaining (UPC) problem is formalized as
an Integer Linear Programming (ILP) model aimed at optimizing
network operator expenditures and the QoS. Moreover, the pro-
posed model considers several aspects such as resource capacity,
service latency, UPF-specific requirements, and the order of VNFs
in the Service Function Chains (SFCs).
• Since the UPC problem is NP-hard, two solutions are provided
to solve it in polynomial time. Specifically, a heuristic and a
meta-heuristic called Priority and Cautious UPC (PC-UPC) and
Simulated Annealing-based (SA) UPC (SA-UPC), respectively, are
developed.
• The proposed heuristic avoids the rejections of SFC requests
(SFCRs) by prioritizing the mapping of the most demanding ser-
vices and considering the effects of mapping decisions on the
current and next stages.
• The proposed SA incorporates several strategies (e.g., restart–
stop and variable Markov chain length; VMCL) that significantly
improve its efficiency and effectiveness compared with classical
SA (CSA) approaches.
• The performance of the proposed solutions is evaluated through
extensive simulations. The obtained results validate that the pro-
posed heuristics can achieve an average cost close to the optimal
cost in a considerably shorter time when the number of PDU
session requests is small.
The remainder of the paper is organized as follows. Section 2
presents an overview of related work. Section 3 provides the mathemat-
ical formulation of the problem, and Section 4 describes the proposed
heuristic and meta-heuristic solutions. Next, Section 5 discusses the
simulation results, and finally, Section 6 concludes this work and
outlines future studies.
2. Related work
This section provides a literature review of preliminary research
work related to the UPF and SFC placement (SFCP) problems with
single and multiple branches. It underlines their strengths and lim-
itations as well as solution approaches. Moreover, the review pays
special attention to studies that apply SA in their solutions. We adopted
SA as a solution approach due to its efficiency and flexibility for
solving combinatorial optimization problems (e.g., the facility location
problem) compared with other algorithms such as branch-and-bound
and greedy (Fischer et al., 2019).
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Journal of Network and Computer Applications 197 (2022) 103269
2.1. 5G UPFs placement and chaining
Peters and Khan (2018, 2019) propose the concept of anticipatory
user plane management for reducing the effects of handover proce-
dures. In this regard, predictions of individual user behavior are used
to decide whether to insert intermediate UPFs (I-UPFs) in the session
data path. Additionally, in Peters and Khan (2019), a simplified model
overview is introduced to optimize the I-UPF placement. Leyva-Pupo
et al. (2019a,b) address the placement problem of anchor UPFs (A-
UPFs). Their main objective is to optimize deployment and operational
expenditures while satisfying 5G service requirements. To this end,
two ILP models are presented in Leyva-Pupo et al. (2019a) whereas
in Leyva-Pupo et al. (2019b) a mathematical model along with an
algorithm is provided.
In Ge et al. (2019), introduce a framework for determining the
optimal set of UPFs that traffic flows should traverse. To this end,
different flow categories and SFC templates are defined for identifying
the set of UPFs in a flow path. Nonetheless, no solution is presented
for addressing the UPF placement problem. Subramanya et al. (2020)
tackle the problem of joint user association and SFCP in a hierarchical
MEC ecosystem. Two solutions, an ILP and a heuristic, are proposed
for determining the optimal location of the VNFs while minimizing
E2E service delay. Moreover, the researchers apply machine learning
models to predict the required number of UPFs based on traffic de-
mands. Nevertheless, no placement constraints associated with UPFs
are considered since they assume that the SFCs are composed of only
one type of UPF.
2.2. Single-branch SFC placement
The authors in Papagianni et al. (2018) and Oljira et al. (2017)
tackle the SFC mapping problem in LTE networks through optimization
models. In Papagianni et al. (2018), propose a MILP model aimed
at reducing deployment- and bandwidth-associated costs through VNF
sharing. However, the E2E latency requirement is overlooked. By con-
trast, Oljira et al. (2017) present a fine-grained delay model that
includes the effects of virtualization overhead. This model’s main ob-
jective is to minimize the combination of several cost components
subject to resource capacity limitations, VNF placement constraints,
flow conservation, and latency requirements. Mouaci et al. (2020)
attempt to solve the VNF placement and routing problem. To this
end, a path-based MILP model is introduced with the main objective
of optimizing VNF deployment and node opening costs. The model
considers several constraints such as anti-affinity, VNF order, routing,
and latency. Nevertheless, the link capacity limitation is ignored.
Optimization models are characterized by scalability limitations.
Hence, they are usually used to solve small-scale problems or as a
benchmark for assessing the performance of heuristic-based solutions.
This combined approach has been widely used by many research
works (Alleg et al., 2017; Song et al., 2017; Wang et al., 2019b;
Allybokus et al., 2018; Li et al., 2019) in the field of SFCP. Alleg et al.
(2017) formalize the SFC placement and chaining problem as an ILP
and propose a degree-based heuristic. These solutions are aimed at min-
imizing E2E delay and resource allocation costs. The model embraces
constraints related to node and link capacity, VNF mapping, E2E delay,
and flow conservation. Song et al. (2017) study the resource-efficient
VNF placement problem to minimize computing and communication
resources. An ILP model and a heuristic based on the hidden Markov
model are provided. In Wang et al. (2019b), the main objective is
to optimize VNF instance and link utilization in a cloud data center
environment. In Song et al. (2017), Wang et al. (2019b), several aspects
are taken into consideration, such as resource capacity, VNF order
dependency, and flow conservation; however, the E2E service latency
requirement is overlooked.
Allybokus et al. (2018) formulate the problem as a MILP that
encompasses several constraints such as service delay, VNF order,
I. Leyva-Pupo and C. Cervelló-Pastor
anti-affinity, and resource limitations. Their main aim is to optimize
routing and VNF deployment costs. Moreover, a heuristic algorithm
that combines the linear relaxation of the problem with a greedy ap-
proach is developed. Likewise, Li et al. (2019) propose a greedy-based
heuristic. It studies the SFCP problem in a hierarchical MEC ecosystem
to minimize the total cost associated with substrate resources subject to
capacity and propagation delay restrictions. A common limitation of the
aforementioned works is that they have only considered single-branch
SFCRs.
2.3. Multiple-branch SFC placement
Luizelli et al. (2015, 2017) approach the VNF placement and chain-
ing (VNFPC) as an optimization problem combined with heuristic
solutions. Their main objective is to minimize the number of VNFs
mapped on the infrastructure subject to limitations of physical re-
sources, VNF mapping, E2E delay, and flow conservation rules. To
overcome the scalability limitations of the models, a binary search
heuristic is proposed in Luizelli et al. (2015), whereas in Luizelli et al.
(2017) an algorithm based on a variable neighborhood search meta-
heuristic is introduced. They consider VNF sharing and the existence
of different SFC topologies.
The goal in Wang et al. (2019c) is to optimize the VNF deploy-
ment and link costs subject to resources, delay, and traffic routing
constraints. Moreover, aspects such as traffic splitting into multiple
branches as well as multiple ingress/egress nodes are taken into ac-
count. Similarly, Leivadeas et al. (2019) adopt a path-splitting approach
to address the SFC mapping in a MEC-Cloud infrastructure to minimize
E2E communication delays and deployment costs. To solve the prob-
lem, a Mixed-Integer Programming (MIP) model and a Tabu Search
algorithm are developed. The MIP formulation accounts for aspects
related to resource capacity, flow conservation, and VNF mapping.
Nevertheless, the definition of constraints for ensuring the correct order
of VNFs in the chain is omitted. Jalalitabar et al. (2019) address the
branching SFC embedding and routing problem. To this end, they
define a set of policies that had to be accounted for, such as VNF
dependency, branching, and anti-affinity. Additionally, they propose
an algorithm to optimize node and link utilization. Nonetheless, the
service latency requirement is omitted from the solution.
In Alhussein et al. (2020), tackle multicast service orchestration
for single and multiple services. They deal with the optimization of
two conflicting objectives (i.e., VNF deployment and link provisioning
costs) subject to node capacity and flow conservation constraints. How-
ever, E2E latency requirements are not considered and the problem
is solved under the assumption that VNFs cannot be shared among
multiple SFCRs. Since the problem is proven to be NP-hard, low com-
plexity heuristics are proposed to find efficient solutions. Ren et al.
(2019) propose the use of the service function tree to embed SFC for
multicast tasks. An ILP model and a heuristic are provided to optimize
deployment and routing costs. They solve the problem subject to node
capacity, flow conservation, and multicast flow constraints. However,
no restrictions regarding either link capacity or E2E delay are included.
2.4. SA in the VNF and SFC placement
Li and Qian (2015) formulate the VNF placement problem as an
ILP and propose an SA algorithm to solve it. Likewise, Cheng et al.
(2015) formulate the service chain instantiation as an ILP problem
and rely on SA to determine its solution. Liu et al. (2017) address the
middlebox placement problem in order to optimize SFC performance
(i.e., the E2E delay and bandwidth consumption). To overcome the
complexity of the problem a greedy and a SA solution are proposed.
Similarly, in Fischer et al. (2019), a heuristic called affinity-based SA
is proposed to address the delay-aware SFC embedding problem. The
proposed solutions can not only outperform several greedy approaches
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Journal of Network and Computer Applications 197 (2022) 103269
(i.e., Liu et al. (2017), Fischer et al. (2019)) but can also obtain near-
optimal results. Nonetheless, they are based on CSA approaches with
none or minor modifications e.g., neighborhood solution generator).
Contrary to the aforementioned works, which have considered only
one type of UPF in the session data path or overlooked UPF re-
quirements in their solutions, our problem formulation specifically
deals with UPFs’ main roles (refer to Section 3.1), characteristics, and
specificities. To this end, PDU sessions are modeled as SFCRs, which
may have different topologies (single and multiple branches). However,
when working with SFC is crucial to consider VNFs order and inter-
dependency. For instance, I-UPF should be placed before A-UPFs, in
the uplink direction, while A-UPFs terminate connections at the data
network (DN) end. Furthermore, 5G services characterize by stringent
latency and bandwidth requirements that are more difficult to meet
with increasing SFC lengths as processing and propagation delays also
increase. Another important requirement is the anti-affinity constraint
which not only enhances the robustness of the UPF placement but
also allows to reach multiple networks within the same PDU session
through the multi-home functionality. The latter is essential for the
deployment of MEC scenarios and local area data network (Jun et al.,
2020). Thereby, our mathematical model takes a wide range of con-
straints related to both the UPF and SFC placement problems into
account. These restrictions range from latency and capacity limitations
to VNF order, anti-affinity, and VNF sharing. Moreover, to overcome
the scalability limitation of the model, we propose two heuristic-based
solutions: a heuristic-specific and SA variant. The latter introduces
several modifications that significantly enhance the performance.
3. Optimal UPF placement and chaining
This section begins by giving a brief background about 5G UPFs and
presents the used notation and models for the system and SFCRs. Then,
we describe and formulate the UPF placement and chaining problem as
an ILP model.
3.1. 5G user plane functions
The 5G user plane is compounded by UPFs, which are in charge
of processing PDUs between the access network (AN) and the data
network. UPFs may perform different functionalities such as an external
PDU session point of interconnection to DN, and an anchor point for
intra-/inter-radio access technologies’ mobility. They are also respon-
sible for packet inspection, routing and forwarding, traffic steering
and usage reporting, lawful interception, and QoS handling (e.g., data
rate enforcement). Not all of these functionalities are required to be
supported by a single UPF instance, and they can be selected and
tailored as required either during or after the establishment of a session.
To perform these functionalities, they rely on the Session Management
Functions (SMFs) in the control plane. The SMFs are also responsible
for selecting and managing the UPFs associated with a PDU session.
Regarding UPFs’ functionalities, four main roles can be defined:
PDU Session Anchor (PSA), I-UPF, Uplink Classifier (UL-CL), and Branch-
ing Point (BP). PSAs, also called A-UPFs, terminate the PDU session at
the DN end and are responsible for IP anchoring. The I-UPFs forward
traffic between the AN and the PSA. This type of UPF can be used to
guarantee the continuity of the service either when the user moves in
a wide range network or due to transport network limitations.
Similarly, UL-CLs and BPs may be inserted in the data path between
the AN and PSAs. However, unlike the former, these functionalities
allow a single PDU session to be served by multiple PSAs connected
to the same DN to support session and service continuity (SSC) mode
3 and selective traffic routing. The latter is especially useful for edge
computing scenarios where services are hosted closer to the users.
These functionalities are not mutually exclusive. Specifically, UPFs
acting as UL-CLs or BPs may also support the PSAs’ functionality.
Moreover, a single UPF entity can have different roles for one or various
I. Leyva-Pupo and C. Cervelló-Pastor Journal of Network and Computer Applications 197 (2022) 103269

Table 1
Physical and virtual networks notation.
Notation Description
Sets
𝑁 Set of all nodes
𝑁𝑟 Set of access nodes
𝑁𝑐 Set of candidate locations (e.g., MEC servers)
𝑁𝑎 Set of aggregation points
𝐸 Set of physical links
𝑃 Set of paths between all network nodes
𝑃𝑛,𝑚 Set of paths between nodes n and m, (𝑛, 𝑚 ∈ 𝑁)
𝑇 Set of all types of available VNFs
Parameters and indicators
𝐶𝑐 Resource capacity at candidate location 𝑛 ∈ 𝑁𝑐
𝐶𝑡 Resource capacity of VNF of type 𝑡 ∈ 𝑇
𝛽𝑢,𝑣 Bandwidth capacity of link (u,v)
𝑑𝑢,𝑣 Latency associated to link (u,v)
Fig. 1. Different topologies for PDU sessions.
𝑑𝑝 Latency associated to path 𝑝 ∈ 𝑃
𝑑𝑡 Processing delay of VNF of type 𝑡 ∈ 𝑇
𝐼𝑡 Maximum number of instances of type 𝑡 ∈ 𝑇
𝑝
𝐻𝑢,𝑣 1 if path 𝑝 ∈ 𝑃 is mapped to physical link (u,v)
PDU sessions (Rommer et al., 2019). Additionally, according to their
𝑉𝑛𝑡 1 if node 𝑛 ∈ 𝑁 supports VNFs of type t
location in the data path, two types can be defined: terminated UPFs
(T-UPFs) and intermediate UPFs. The first category is compounded by
PSAs, whereas the second one embraces all those UPFs that connect Table 2
with the AN and other UPFs or just with other UPFs. Notably, UPFs Sets, parameters and indicators related to SFCRs.
that support BP and UL-CL functionalities are classified as I-UPFs with Notation Description
multi-homing functionality (MI-UPF), but not all I-UPFs are UL-CL or 𝑈 Set of active users
BPs. 𝑆 Set of PDU sessions (SFCRs)
𝑢𝑠 User ID of PDU session 𝑠 ∈ 𝑆
To comply with 3GPP specifications for 5G networks (3GPP,
𝑟𝑠 Access node (𝑟𝑠 ∈ 𝑁𝑟 ) of SFCR s
2020a,b), the following aspects must be considered when orchestrating 𝐹𝑠 Set of VNFs forming SFCR s
PDU sessions: (1) At least one UPF is required to act as a PSA; (2) all |𝐹𝑠𝑡 | Number of VNFs of type t in SFCR s
UPFs acting as PSAs must terminate the data path with the DN; (3) more 𝐶𝑠 Computing resources required by SFCR 𝑠
than one I-UPF (e.g., UL-CL and BP) may be inserted in the path but 𝛽𝑠 Bandwidth capacity required by SFCR s
𝐿𝑠 E2E latency requirement of SFCR s
only one connects with the AN via the N3 interface, except for session
𝐵𝑠 Number of A-UPFs (branches) in SFCR s
continuity during UL-CL/BP relocation (3GPP, 2020a); (4) if a UL-CL 𝑇𝑠𝑓 ,𝑡 1 if VNF 𝑓 ∈ 𝐹𝑠 in SFCR 𝑠 is of type 𝑡 ∈ 𝑇
or BP functionality is inserted in the data path of a PDU session, then 𝑂𝑠𝑓 ,𝑔,𝑏 1 if VNF f goes just before VNF g in branch 𝑏 ∈ 𝐵𝑠 of SFCR 𝑠
multiple PSAs are assigned to this session; and (5) the use of UL-CL 𝑄𝑓𝑠 ,𝑏 1 if VNF f is present in branch 𝑏 ∈ 𝐵𝑠 of SFCR 𝑠
and BP is independent of the SSC mode and is mostly linked to QoS
metrics or network policy rules.
According to the previous considerations, we assumed that PDU
of notations related to physical and virtual networks is provided in
sessions can have different characteristics (e.g., number and type of
Table 1.
UPFs as well as topology), which may vary according to several aspects
The set of active PDU sessions is denoted by S and the PDU sessions
such as requested service type and network conditions. In this paper,
are modeled as SFCRs. The properties of an SFCR 𝑠 ∈ 𝑆 are represented
we consider three basic topologies for PDU session flows by considering
by a ten-tuple ⟨𝑢𝑠 , 𝑟𝑠 , 𝐹𝑠 , 𝐶𝑠 , 𝛽𝑠 , 𝐿𝑠 , 𝐵𝑠 , 𝑇𝑠𝑓 ,𝑡 , 𝑂𝑠𝑓 ,𝑔,𝑏 , 𝑄𝑓𝑠 ,𝑏 ⟩, where 𝑢𝑠 , 𝑟𝑠 ∈
the aforementioned main UPF roles and requirements. These topologies
𝑁𝑟 and 𝐹𝑠 denote the user ID to which the data session is associated,
may be combined or extended to include other UPF roles and create
its access node, and set of requested VNF instances, respectively. To
more complex structures. Fig. 1 depicts these topologies in the uplink
simplify the model, we define the access node (source) of an SFCR as
direction.
VNFs of type 𝑡 = 0 and extend the set of requested VNFs to include
3.2. System model and notation it, 𝐹𝑠+ = 𝐹𝑠 ∪ 𝑟𝑠 . Furthermore, each PDU session is characterized by
a processing capacity demand (𝐶𝑠 ), a required bandwidth (𝛽𝑠 ), and a
The 5G network is modeled as a directed graph G(N, E, U), where maximum E2E delay (𝐿𝑠 ). Additionally, parameters 𝐵𝑠 , 𝑇𝑠𝑓 ,𝑡 , 𝑂𝑠𝑓 ,𝑔,𝑏 and
N, E, and U represent the set of network nodes, edges, and users with 𝑄𝑓𝑠 ,𝑏 specify the number of branches in an SFCR, the type of each VNF,
active PDU sessions, respectively. The set of network nodes is formed as well as their order and presence in each branch, respectively. Please
by VNF candidate locations (𝑁𝑐 ), aggregation points (𝑁𝑎 ) and access note that, unlike other related studies, our model does not include the
nodes (𝑁𝑟 ). Moreover, we include the set of paths in the network (𝑃 ) destination nodes of an SFCR, since we assume that they are DNs co-
as well as the set of paths between a specific pair of nodes (𝑃𝑛,𝑚 ), located with the A-UPFs, and therefore, their location before the UPF
where 𝑃𝑛,𝑚 ⊂ 𝑃 . Each path 𝑝 ∈ 𝑃 is identified by its endpoints (n,m) placement is unknown. Table 2 summarizes the SFCR’s notation.
and an ID (h) to distinguish different paths between the same pair
𝑝 3.3. Problem formulation
of nodes. The parameter 𝐻𝑢,𝑣 indicates whether a physical link (u,v)
belongs to a path p or not. The candidate nodes are characterized by
a processing capacity (𝐶𝑐 ) while the physical links are characterized 5G services are characterized by stringent requirements such as high
by the bandwidth capacity (𝛽𝑢,𝑣 ) and latency (𝑑𝑢,𝑣 ). The latter includes data rates and capacity, huge connection density, and very low latency,
propagation and processing delay of the transmission nodes (e.g., APs). which in some cases is less than 1 ms. To cope with such demands, not
Different types of VNFs can be deployed. The set of all the available only is an increase in the number and capabilities of UPFs required
VNF types is represented by 𝑇 where 𝑡 ∈ 𝑇 denotes a specific type but also their placement must be closer to the users at the network
(e.g., t=1: A-UPF, t=2: MI-UPF, and t=3: I-UPF). Each VNF type is edge. Thus, the network response time can be enhanced since the E2E
associated with a processing capacity (𝐶𝑡 ), a processing delay (𝑑𝑡 ), service delay and link load are reduced. Moreover, unlike traditional
and a maximum number of instances that can be deployed (𝐼𝑡 ). A list LTE networks, where a service session is assigned to a unique PDW

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I. Leyva-Pupo and C. Cervelló-Pastor Journal of Network and Computer Applications 197 (2022) 103269

Table 3
Decision variables.
Notation Description
𝑤𝑛 1 if candidate node 𝑛 ∈ 𝑁𝑐 is open
𝑥𝑖,𝑡,𝑛 1 if instance i of VNF type 𝑡 is deployed on node 𝑛
𝑧𝑓𝑖,𝑡,𝑛
,𝑠
1 if VNF 𝑓 of SFCR 𝑠 is mapped to instance i of VNF type t located at node n
𝑎𝑓𝑖,𝑡,𝑛
,𝑏,𝑠
1 if VNF 𝑓 in branch 𝑏 of SFCR 𝑠 is mapped to instance i of VNF type t located at node n
𝑦𝑓𝑝 ,𝑔,𝑏,𝑠 1 if path 𝑝 ∈ 𝑃 is used to route traffic between VNFs f and g in branch 𝑏 of SFCR s

and SGW, in 5G networks, a single PDU session can be served by several VNF constraints: Inequality (7) expresses the maximum number
UPFs simultaneously. This situation implies a significant increase in the of VNF instances of a given type that can be deployed. This can be
number of deployed UPFs which translates into higher expenditures for determined according to the number of available licenses or resources.
network operators. Furthermore, some of the UPFs’ main functions are Moreover, constraint (8) ensures that each instance 𝑖 ∈ 𝐼𝑡 of a VNF
traffic steering and packet routing and forwarding. Thus, the optimiza- type t is deployed on one node at most. Additionally, expression (9)
tion of the flow data path is of the utmost importance for reducing guarantees that the instances of each VNF type are deployed only on
service latency as well as the transmission cost. those nodes that support such type and are open whereas inequality
The UPC problem can be defined as follows: Given a physical network (10) forces a node to be closed if it has not deployed any VNF instance.
infrastructure and a set of PDU session requests, it is necessary to determine ∑ ∑
the optimal number and location of the UPFs as well as their routing paths so 𝑥𝑖,𝑡,𝑛 ≤ 𝐼𝑡 ∀𝑡 ∈ 𝑇 ; 𝑡 ≠ 0 (7)
𝑖∈𝐼𝑡 𝑛∈𝑁𝑐
that the overall cost and QoS are optimized. Moreover, session requirements ∑
such as VNF order and latency must be ensured while considering physical 𝑥𝑖,𝑡,𝑛 ≤ 1 ∀𝑖 ∈ 𝐼𝑡 , ∀𝑡 ∈ 𝑇 ; 𝑡 ≠ 0 (8)
network limitations, such as available resources and topology. A description 𝑛∈𝑁𝑐
of the decision variables used for the problem formulation is provided 𝑥𝑖,𝑡,𝑛 ≤ 𝑤𝑛 ⋅ 𝑉𝑛𝑡 ∀𝑖 ∈ 𝐼𝑡 , ∀𝑡 ∈ 𝑇 , ∀𝑛 ∈ 𝑁 (9)
in Table 3. ∑ ∑
Additionally, to simplify the problem, a set of assumptions were 𝑤𝑛 ≤ 𝑥𝑖,𝑡,𝑛 ∀𝑛 ∈ 𝑁 (10)
𝑖∈𝐼𝑡 ∀𝑡∈𝑇
made: (1) the use of either UL-CL or BP functionality is linked to
the PDU session type (e.g., IPv4 or IPv6) which is out of this paper’s SFC constraints: Constraints (11)–(17) mainly specify, the number
scope; hence, both types of UPFs were treated interchangeably as MI- and type of VNFs assigned to the SFCRs. Constraint (11) enforces each
UPF; (2) the 3GPP in its technical specifications does not restrict the VNF 𝑓 ∈ 𝐹𝑠+ , requested by a PDU session, to be mapped to one
maximum number of UPFs for a given PDU session; nevertheless, the VNF instance whereas inequality (12) restricts its assignment to those
number of I-UPFs serving a PDU session was limited to one to avoid locations where there are VNF instances of the requested type deployed.
extra signaling between SMFs and UPFs and reduce resource utilization Likewise, (13) avoids instantiating empty VNFs by ensuring that the
in the user plane; (3) a UPF instance has an equal and identical role launched instances have assigned service requests. Expression (14)
for all its assigned PDU sessions; and (4) the links propagation delay is guarantees that each SFCR is assigned to at least its minimum number
constant and proportional to their length. of required VNF instances of a given type. Additionally, constraint (15)
The main objective of the UPC problem is to minimize provisioning expresses that if a VNF 𝑓 ∈ 𝐹𝑠+ in an SFC is mapped to a VNF instance,
costs and service response time. To this end, three cost components then this is because this VNF service has been requested by at least one
were considered: node activation, number of deployed VNF instances of its branches. Likewise, inequality (16) ensures that a VNF instance
(i.e., UPFs), and routing cost. Note that the latter has been expressed can serve a branch of an SFCR only if it has been mapped on a network.
in terms of the propagation delay since this allows the optimization Moreover, inequality (17) ensures that all the branches of the SFCs are
of more than one objective at the same time (i.e., routing cost and served only by their requested VNFs.
response time). ∑ ∑ ∑ 𝑓 ,𝑠
∑ 𝑧𝑖,𝑡,𝑛 = 1 ∀𝑓 ∈ 𝐹𝑠+ , ∀𝑠 ∈ 𝑆 (11)
Min 𝑤𝑛 (1) 𝑖∈𝐼𝑡 𝑡∈𝑇 𝑛∈𝑁
𝑛∈𝑁𝑐
∑∑ ∑ 𝑧𝑓𝑖,𝑡,𝑛
,𝑠
≤ 𝑥𝑖,𝑡,𝑛 ⋅ 𝑇𝑠𝑓 ,𝑡 ∀𝑓 ∈ 𝐹𝑠+ , ∀𝑠 ∈ 𝑆, ∀𝑖 ∈ 𝐼𝑡 , ∀𝑡 ∈ 𝑇 , ∀𝑛 ∈ 𝑁 (12)
Min 𝑥𝑖,𝑡,𝑛 (2) ∑ ∑ 𝑓 ,𝑠
𝑖∈𝐼𝑡 𝑡∈𝑇 , 𝑛∈𝑁𝑐 𝑥𝑖,𝑡,𝑛 ≤ 𝑧𝑖,𝑡,𝑛 ∀𝑖 ∈ 𝐼𝑡 , ∀𝑡 ∈ 𝑇 , ∀𝑛 ∈ 𝑁𝑐 (13)
𝑡≠0
𝑠∈𝑆 𝑓 ∈𝐹𝑠
∑ ∑ ∑∑ ∑ ∑∑
Min 𝑑𝑝 ⋅ 𝑦𝑓𝑝 ,𝑔,𝑏,𝑠 (3) 𝑧𝑓𝑖,𝑡,𝑛
,𝑠
≥ |𝐹𝑠𝑡 | ∀𝑠 ∈ 𝑆, ∀𝑡 ∈ 𝑇 ; 𝑡 ≠ 0 (14)
𝑓 ,𝑔∈𝐹𝑠+ 𝑏∈𝐵𝑠 𝑠∈𝑆 𝑝∈𝑃 𝑓 ∈𝐹𝑠 𝑖∈𝐼𝑡𝑛∈𝑁𝑐
∑
The constraints associated with the UPC problem were grouped into 𝑧𝑓𝑖,𝑡,𝑛
,𝑠
≤ 𝑎𝑓𝑖,𝑡,𝑛
,𝑏,𝑠
∀𝑓 ∈𝐹𝑠+ , ∀𝑠 ∈ 𝑆, ∀𝑖 ∈ 𝐼𝑡 , ∀𝑡 ∈ 𝑇 , ∀𝑛 ∈ 𝑁 (15)
five categories: capacity, VNF, SFC, UPF, and QoS (i.e., E2E delay) 𝑏∈𝐵𝑠
constraints.
𝑎𝑓𝑖,𝑡,𝑛
,𝑏,𝑠
≤ 𝑧𝑓𝑖,𝑡,𝑛
,𝑠
∀𝑓 ∈ 𝐹𝑠+ , ∀𝑏 ∈ 𝐵𝑠 , ∀𝑠 ∈ 𝑆, ∀𝑖 ∈ 𝐼𝑡 , ∀𝑡 ∈ 𝑇 , ∀𝑛 ∈ 𝑁 (16)
Capacity constraints: Expressions (4), (5) and (6) represent the ∑ ∑ 𝑓 ,𝑏,𝑠
resource limitation in the candidate nodes, VNF instances, and phys- 𝑎𝑖,𝑡,𝑛 ≤ 𝑄𝑓𝑠 ,𝑏 ∀𝑓 ∈ 𝐹𝑠+ , ∀𝑏 ∈ 𝐵𝑠 , ∀𝑠 ∈ 𝑆, ∀𝑡 ∈ 𝑇 (17)
ical links, respectively. The processing capacity occupied by the VNF 𝑖∈𝐼𝑡 𝑛∈𝑁
∑
instances deployed on a MEC server cannot exceed its physical resource 𝑦𝑓𝑝 ,𝑔,𝑏,𝑠 ≥ 𝑂𝑠𝑓 ,𝑔,𝑏 ∀𝑓 , 𝑔 ∈ 𝐹𝑠+ , ∀𝑏 ∈ 𝐵𝑠 , ∀𝑠 ∈ 𝑆 (18)
capabilities; see (4). Similarly, constraints (5) and (6) express that VNF 𝑝∈𝑃
instances and links must have sufficient capacity to handle the required
∑ ∑∑ ∑∑
capabilities of their assigned PDU sessions. 𝑦𝑓𝑝 ,𝑔,𝑏,𝑠 ≤ 𝑎𝑓𝑖,𝑡,𝑛
,𝑏,𝑠
⋅ 𝑎𝑠,𝑏,𝑔 ∀𝑓 , 𝑔 ∈ 𝐹𝑠+ , ∀𝑏 ∈ 𝐵𝑠 ,
∑∑ 𝑝∈𝑃𝑛,𝑚 𝑖∈𝐼𝑡 𝑡∈𝑇 𝑖∈𝐼𝑡 𝑡∈𝑇
𝑡,𝑖,𝑚
𝐶𝑡 ⋅ 𝑥𝑖,𝑡,𝑛 ≤ 𝐶𝑛 ∀𝑛 ∈ 𝑁𝑐 (4)
𝑖∈𝐼𝑡 𝑡∈𝑇 , ∀𝑠 ∈ 𝑆, ∀𝑛, 𝑚 ∈ 𝑁 (19)
𝑡≠0
∑ ∑
𝐶𝑠 ⋅ 𝑧𝑓𝑖,𝑡,𝑛
,𝑠
≤ 𝐶𝑡 ∀𝑖 ∈ 𝐼𝑡 , ∀𝑡 ∈ 𝑇 ; 𝑡 ≠ 0, ∀𝑛 ∈ 𝑁𝑐 (5) Expressions (18) and (19) are path-related constraints. Inequal-
𝑓 ∈𝐹𝑠 𝑠∈𝑆 ity (18) guarantees the order among VNFs forming the branches of an
∑ ∑ ∑∑
𝛽𝑠 ⋅ 𝑦𝑓𝑝 ,𝑔,𝑏,𝑠 ⋅ 𝐻𝑢,𝑣
𝑝
≤ 𝛽𝑢,𝑣 ∀(𝑢, 𝑣) ∈ 𝐸 (6) SFCR by enforcing the existence of a path between two consecutive
𝑓 ,𝑔∈𝐹𝑠+ 𝑏∈𝐵𝑠 𝑠∈𝑆 𝑝∈𝑃 VNFs in the required direction. Additionally, constraint (19) enforces

5
I. Leyva-Pupo and C. Cervelló-Pastor Journal of Network and Computer Applications 197 (2022) 103269

the assignment of the VNFs forming an SFCR to those nodes through 4.1. Priority and cautious UPC
which its traffic passes through. Furthermore, it avoids loops in the
traffic flow between two consecutive VNFs by preventing them from Algorithm 1 provides a general overview of the proposed PC-UPC
using more than one data path for their communication. Note that heuristic. It takes as its input a set of SFCRs and the substrate net-
this constraint is non-linear since it implies the product of two binary work topology (e.g., nodes, physical links, and paths) along with their
variables. The latter can be better appreciated if we add a binary vari- requirements and capabilities, respectively. The algorithm begins by
∑ ∑
able 𝜆𝑓𝑚,𝑏,𝑠 which takes value 1 if 𝑡∈𝑇 𝑖∈𝐼𝑡 𝑎𝑓𝑖,𝑡,𝑛
,𝑏,𝑠
= 1 and 0 otherwise. determining the candidates that could host the VNFs associated with
Consequently, expression (19) can be linearized by introducing a new each SFCR as well as the SFCRs that could be attended by each
𝑓 ,𝑔,𝑏,𝑠
binary variable 𝛿𝑛,𝑚 such that: server in terms of latency requirements (line: 2). The former provides
𝑓 ,𝑔,𝑏,𝑠
𝛿𝑛,𝑚 ≤ 𝜆𝑓𝑚,𝑏,𝑠 ∀𝑓 , 𝑔 ∈ 𝐹𝑠+ , ∀𝑏 ∈ 𝐵𝑠 , ∀𝑠 ∈ 𝑆, ∀𝑛, 𝑚 ∈ 𝑁 information for determining whether an SFCR is in a critical stage,
whereas the latter helps to decide in which server it is more convenient
𝑓 ,𝑔,𝑏,𝑠
𝛿𝑛,𝑚 ≤ 𝜆𝑔,𝑏,𝑠
𝑚 ∀𝑓 , 𝑔 ∈ 𝐹𝑠+ , ∀𝑏 ∈ 𝐵𝑠 , ∀𝑠 ∈ 𝑆, ∀𝑛, 𝑚 ∈ 𝑁 to instantiate a virtual UPF. Specifically, an SFCR is classified as critical
𝑓 ,𝑔,𝑏,𝑠
𝛿𝑛,𝑚 ≥ 𝜆𝑓𝑚,𝑏,𝑠 + 𝜆𝑔,𝑏,𝑠
𝑚 −1 ∀𝑓 , 𝑔 ∈ 𝐹𝑠+ , ∀𝑏 ∈ 𝐵𝑠 , ∀𝑠 ∈ 𝑆, ∀𝑛, 𝑚 ∈ 𝑁 if it has a number of edge nodes (ENs) equal to or lower than the
∑ minimum required to map its VNFs (line: 3). Afterward, the SFCRs are
𝑦𝑓𝑝 ,𝑔,𝑏,𝑠 ≤ 𝛿𝑛,𝑚
𝑓 ,𝑔,𝑏,𝑠
∀𝑓 , 𝑔 ∈ 𝐹𝑠+ , ∀𝑏 ∈ 𝐵𝑠 , ∀𝑠 ∈ 𝑆, ∀𝑛, 𝑚 ∈ 𝑁
𝑝∈𝑃𝑛,𝑚 sorted according to the established criteria (line: 4). In this case, they
are ordered in terms of criticism level, service latency requirements
UPF constraints: Inequality (20) defines the anti-affinity constraint
(ascending), number of VNFs forming the service chain (descending),
for VNFs that serve the same PDU session. Specifically, it expresses that
number of available candidates, and closeness between their access
VNFs of the same type serving a PDU session must be instantiated on
nodes. In this way, the more demanding PDU sessions have more pos-
different nodes. Additionally, expression (21) restricts the deployment
sibilities of being mapped. Once the SFCR order has been established,
of I-UPFs with no multi-homing functionality and A-UPFs to different
the mapping process starts by selecting the most demanding SFCR and
locations since the former are inserted in a data path to overcome PSA
calling the SFCR-mapping procedure (lines: 6–7).
limitations.
∑ ∑ 𝑓 ,𝑠
𝑧𝑖,𝑡,𝑛 ≤ 1 ∀𝑠 ∈ 𝑆, ∀𝑡 ∈ 𝑇 ; 𝑡 ≠ 0, ∀𝑛 ∈ 𝑁𝑐 (20)
𝑓 ∈𝐹𝑠 𝑖∈𝐼𝑡 Algorithm 1: Priority & Cautious UPC
∑ ∑ ∑ ∑ Input: 𝑁, 𝐸, 𝑃 , 𝑆
𝑧𝑠,𝑓 + 𝑧𝑠,𝑓 ≤1 ∀𝑠 ∈ 𝑆, ∀𝑛 ∈ 𝑁𝑐 (21)
1,𝑖,𝑛 3,𝑖,𝑛 Output: Set of UPFs (𝑁𝑢 ), Sets of mapped and unmapped SFCR (𝑆𝑚
𝑓 ∈𝐹𝑠 𝑖∈𝐼𝑡 𝑓 ∈𝐹𝑠 𝑖∈𝐼𝑡
and 𝑆𝑢 )
E2E delay constraint: Expression (22) ensures that the E2E data 1 Initialize output variables and parameters
plane delay of a PDU session, in the Round-Trip-Time (RTT), does not 2 Determine available candidates for each SFCR and SFCRs near each
exceed its service latency requirement. It was expressed in terms of candidate
the processing time of VNFs in the branches and the propagation delay 3 Classify SFCRs as critical or not regarding their number of available
between them. candidates
4 Sort SFCRs according to the established criteria (𝑆𝑠𝑜𝑟𝑡 )
⎛ ∑ ∑∑ ∑ ∑ ∑ ⎞ 5 while 𝑆𝑠𝑜𝑟𝑡 ≠ ∅ do
2⋅⎜ 𝑑𝑡 ⋅ 𝑎𝑓𝑖,𝑡,𝑛
,𝑏,𝑠
+ 𝑑𝑝 ⋅ 𝑦𝑓𝑝 ,𝑔,𝑏,𝑠 ⎟ + 𝑑𝐷𝑁 ≤ 𝐿𝑠
⎜ ⎟ 6 𝑠 ← 𝑆𝑠𝑜𝑟𝑡 [0]
⎝𝑓 ∈𝐹𝑠+ 𝑖∈𝐼𝑡 𝑡∈𝑇 𝑛∈𝑁 𝑓 ,𝑔∈𝐹𝑠+ 𝑝∈𝑃 ⎠ 7 Procedure 1: SFCR-mapping Procedure(s)
∀𝑏 ∈ 𝐵𝑠 , ∀𝑠 ∈ 𝑆 (22) 8 if mapping_success then
9 𝑆𝑚 ← 𝑆𝑚 ∪ 𝑠
Since the formalization of the UPC problem resulted in a multi- 10 Update network and infrastructure resources
objective model with conflicting objectives, we adopted a weighted sum 11 if number of available servers changed then
method to transform it into a single-objective model. The relative im- 12 Update available candidates near each SFCR
portance of the cost components in the objective function was specified 13 Sort SFCRs according to the established criteria
by adding a set of weight factors: 𝛼, 𝛽 and 𝛾, such that 𝛼 + 𝛽 + 𝛾 = 1.
14 else
Note that to avoid the predominance of one term over the others, it is 15 𝑆𝑢 ← 𝑆𝑢 ∪ 𝑠
necessary to normalize their magnitudes. Thus, the mathematical model
16 𝑆𝑠𝑜𝑟𝑡 ← 𝑆𝑠𝑜𝑟𝑡 − 𝑠
that describes the UPC problem can be summarized as follows:
∑ ∑∑ ∑ ∑ ∑ ∑∑
Min 𝛼 ⋅ 𝑤𝑛 + 𝛽 ⋅ 𝑥𝑖,𝑡,𝑛 + 𝛾 ⋅ 𝑑𝑝 ⋅ 𝑦𝑓𝑝 ,𝑔,𝑏,𝑠 (23)
𝑛∈𝑁𝑐 𝑖∈𝐼𝑡 𝑡∈𝑇 , 𝑛∈𝑁𝑐 𝑓 ,𝑔∈𝐹𝑠+ 𝑏∈𝐵𝑠 𝑠∈𝑆 𝑝∈𝑃
Procedure 1 is in charge of determining the best location and
𝑡≠0
routing paths for the VNFs forming the selected SFCR. To provide
s.t.: (4) - (22) more effective VNF mapping as well as to avoid SFCR rejection, a VNF
The UPC problem is a specific variant of the VNFPC problem which mapping decision is made by taking into account its effects not only in
has been proven to be an NP-hard problem (Alhussein et al., 2020; the current stage but also in the next stage. Specifically, the procedure
Ghaznavi et al., 2016; Luizelli et al., 2017; Li et al., 2019). Thus, the analyzes how the placement decision of a given VNF affects other VNFs
UPC problem is also NP-Hard. In this context, the design of heuristic that directly depend on it (the next VNFs in the branches). In this
algorithms is required for obtaining efficient solutions to the problem way, dead-ends in the SFC mapping and reassignment procedures can
for large-scale networks. be avoided. To keep the SFCR-mapping procedure simple as well as
to reduce its execution time, we only consider the impact of the VNF
4. Proposed solutions mapping decision in the current and next stages. Nonetheless, it could
be extended to include more stages.
To solve the UPC problem in polynomial time, we propose two The first step of the SFCR-mapping procedure is initializing the
heuristics. Specifically, we develop an algorithm that provides efficient output variables by setting the mapping indicator as successful and cre-
SFC mapping by applying priority classification of session requests and ating an empty set to store the SFCR mapping information (i.e., VNFs’
cautiously mapping their VNFs. We call this approach Priority and location and path; line: 1). Next, it proceeds to map the VNFs by iterat-
Cautious UPC (PC-UPC). Our second solution is an SA-based approach ing through each VNF in the set of VNFs (𝐹𝑠 ) (line: 2). This set contains
that incorporates several strategies to enhance its performance. The the VNFs sorted by their order of appearance in the SFCR branches.
following subsections explain our proposed solutions in detail. Before proceeding to analyze the mapping options for a given VNF,

6
I. Leyva-Pupo and C. Cervelló-Pastor Journal of Network and Computer Applications 197 (2022) 103269

Procedure 1: SFCR-mapping mapping cost of f is calculated according to (23). Additionally, the

fraction of unassigned sessions remaining is also considered when the
1 𝑚𝑎𝑝𝑝𝑖𝑛𝑔_𝑠𝑢𝑐𝑐𝑒𝑠𝑠 ← 𝑇 𝑟𝑢𝑒, 𝐹𝑚𝑎𝑝𝑝𝑒𝑑 ← ∅
2 forall 𝑓 ∈ 𝐹𝑠 do
selection of a candidate involves the creation of a new instance. In
3 if 𝑓 ∉ 𝐹𝑚𝑎𝑝𝑝𝑒𝑑 then this way, UPFs can be created in those candidates that can attend a
4 𝐶𝑜𝑠𝑡𝑏𝑒𝑠𝑡 ← ∞ greater number of SFCRs. As a result of this step, the shortest virtual
5 forall 𝑏 ∈ 𝐵𝑠 do path with enough available bandwidth to support the requested traffic
6 if 𝑓 ∈ 𝑏 then flow is also obtained. Then, the feasible candidates are selected and
7 Determine source and next VNFs sorted in ascending order according to the estimated VNF mapping cost
8 Determine candidates for f (lines: 11–12).
For each feasible candidate (lines: 13–37), the mapping of f will
9 Select candidates common to all the branches (𝑁𝑐𝑓 )
be simulated if its estimated cost is lower than the current best cost
10 Evaluate feasibility and mapping cost for 𝑐 ∈ 𝑁𝑐𝑓
(𝐶𝑜𝑠𝑡𝑏𝑒𝑠𝑡 ). This condition helps to reduce the solution running time by
11 Select feasible candidates (𝑁𝑐𝑓′ )
instantaneously discarding worse candidates. Moreover, if the selected
12 Sort 𝑐 ∈ 𝑁𝑐𝑓′ by cost in ascending order (𝑁𝑐𝑓′ )
𝑠𝑜𝑟𝑡 VNF is not the last one in the chain, the look-ahead process takes
13 forall 𝑐 ∈ 𝑁𝑓𝑓𝑐 do place (lines: 17–34). Otherwise, the first candidate in the set of feasible
𝑠𝑜𝑟𝑡
14 if 𝐶𝑜𝑠𝑡𝑐 < 𝐶𝑜𝑠𝑡𝑏𝑒𝑠𝑡 then candidates is selected as the best one for the mapping of the VNF f,
15 Make a copy of current placement configuration and the placement and SFCR mapping are updated, and the SFCR-mapping
SFCR mapping process is ended (lines: 35–37).
16 Simulate deployment of f in c
The look-ahead process starts by sorting the next VNFs that directly
17 if 𝑓 ≠ 𝑙𝑎𝑠𝑡_𝑣𝑛𝑓 then
depend on the currently selected VNF (f ). These VNFs are sorted by
18 Sort next_vnfs by their requirements
19 forall 𝑛𝑓 ∈ 𝑛𝑒𝑥𝑡_𝑣𝑛𝑓 𝑠 do
their propagation latency budget and criticism level although other
20 Determine candidates for nf criteria may be used. For each next VNF (nf ), its candidates are deter-
21 Evaluate feasibility and mapping cost for mined and evaluated according to their feasibility and mapping cost. If
𝑛𝑐 ∈ 𝑁𝑐𝑛𝑓 feasible candidates exist for the mapping of nf, the one with the lowest
Select feasible candidates (𝑁𝑐𝑛𝑓 cost is selected and the mapping of nf is simulated in the candidate
22 ′ )

23 if 𝑁𝑐𝑛𝑓 ≠ ∅ then
by reserving the required resources (lines: 23–26). Additionally, the
′

24 Select 𝑛𝑐 ∈ 𝑁𝑐𝑛𝑓 with the best cost (𝑛𝑐𝑏𝑒𝑠𝑡 ) deployment cost is updated by considering the expected cost of the next
25 Simulate deployment of nf in 𝑛𝑐𝑏𝑒𝑠𝑡 VNF. In case of no feasible candidate for the next VNFs, the current
26 𝐶𝑜𝑠𝑡𝑐 ← 𝐶𝑜𝑠𝑡𝑐 + 𝐶𝑜𝑠𝑡𝑛𝑐𝑏𝑒𝑠𝑡 candidate 𝑐 ∈ 𝑁𝑓𝑓𝑐 is discarded by setting its cost to infinite (lines: 28–
𝑠𝑜𝑟𝑡
29). The latter avoids selecting candidates that at future steps may lead
27 else
28 𝐶𝑜𝑠𝑡𝑐 ← ∞
to unmapped VNFs. Once the look-ahead process for a given candidate
29 break has finished, its mapping cost is compared with the current best one to
determine if we are in the presence of a better candidate. If this is the
30 if 𝐶𝑜𝑠𝑡𝑐 < 𝐶𝑜𝑠𝑡𝑏𝑒𝑠𝑡 then case, the best cost and candidate are updated. Moreover, when f is the
31 𝑛𝑏𝑒𝑠𝑡 ← 𝑐 penultimate VNF in a chain, the best simulated mapping configuration
32 𝐶𝑜𝑠𝑡𝑏𝑒𝑠𝑡 ← 𝐶𝑜𝑠𝑡𝑐 is also saved to avoid the mapping process of the next VNFs.
33 if f = penultimate_vnf then
Once all the candidates have been analyzed, the one with the
34 Save placement configuration and SFCR
lowest mapping cost is selected and the placement configuration is
mapping
updated with the best SFCR mapping configuration. When no feasible
35 else candidate is found, the mapping process is interrupted and marked as
36 Update placement configuration and SFCR failed. Otherwise, the mapping process continues until no VNF is left
mapping unmapped.
37 return According to the output of the SFCR-mapping procedure, an SFCR
is either classified as mapped or rejected in Algorithm 1. When an
38 if 𝐶𝑜𝑠𝑡𝑏𝑒𝑠𝑡 = ∞ then SFCR is successfully mapped, the network and infrastructure resources
39 𝑚𝑎𝑝𝑝𝑖𝑛𝑔_𝑠𝑢𝑐𝑐𝑒𝑠𝑠 ← 𝐹 𝑎𝑙𝑠𝑒 must be updated. Moreover, whether any changes have occurred in
40 return the candidates set is verified (lines: 11–12). In that case, the subset
41 Update 𝐹𝑚𝑎𝑝𝑝𝑒𝑑 , placement configuration and SFCR mapping of available candidates for each SFCR is updated, and therefore, the
SFCRs must be reordered. Finally, the set of SFCRs is also updated by
42 return
removing the currently selected SFC regardless of its mapping result
(line: 16).

4.2. Simulated annealing-based UPC

whether this VNF has not been mapped yet is first verified (line: 3).
This step is required, since a VNF may have been previously mapped
as a result of the look-ahead process. In the case of an unmapped VNF,
the best mapping cost is set to a large value (i.e., infinite), and the
VNF source nodes, the next VNFs in the chain (if any), and possible
candidates are determined. This step is made for each branch in the
chain since a VNF can have different source nodes, destination VNFs as
well as candidates for each one (lines: 5–8).
The candidates are determined by taking into account the source
node and the available propagation delay budget in each branch. Next,
candidates that are common to all the branches are selected and their
feasibility and mapping cost are determined (lines: 9–10). A candidate
is classified as unfeasible if any of the placement constraints formulated
in Section 3 are violated. In the case of a feasible candidate, the
SA is a local search meta-heuristic that allows escaping from local
optima through hill-climbing moves (Gendreau et al., 2010). Basically,
it accepts worse moves in the hope of finding a global optimum, and
the probability of accepting such moves decreases with the tempera-
ture. SA-based solutions are characterized by having a wide variety of
parameters such as initial and final temperature, temperature length,
cooling schedule, and acceptance criterion, which need to be specified
and tuned according to the problem. In the following subsections,
we provide a detailed description of the main components of the
proposed solution with an emphasis on aspects such as neighborhood
function, the Markov chain length (MCL) parameter, restart strategy,
and termination condition. Moreover, the procedure of the proposed
SA is described through a flowchart.

7
I. Leyva-Pupo and C. Cervelló-Pastor
4.2.1. SA components
Initial solution, acceptance criterion, and cooling schedule: Our pro-
posed SA approach can accept any initial solution (e.g., random or
heuristic-specific) as long as it is feasible. In other words, it must
satisfy the UPF placement constraints specified in Section 3. For the
acceptance criterion and cooling schedule, the Metropolis condition
and geometric scheduling were adopted (Kirkpatrick et al., 1983).
Although other approaches can be used, we prefer these due to their
popularity and simplicity. Due to the wide variety of studies addressing
the performance of both parameters, we focused on the improvement
of other aspects of the solution (i.e., the neighborhood solution, MCL,
and restart solution).
Neighbor solution (NS): Most studies related to SA use only one
approach to generate NSs, which mainly introduce small changes to
the current solution. However, we believe that by combining different
strategies, the efficiency of SA can be significantly improved. Thus,
unlike the former, we propose two approaches (i.e., NS_ST and NS_3T)
that combine intensification with diversification. In this manner, we
can not only better explore the solution space, but also prevent the
algorithm from being trapped in local optima.
The proposed methods encompass three different strategies for mak-
ing changes to the current solution. The first one aims to exploit the
current solution by introducing small changes. Specifically, it randomly
selects an SFCR from the PDU sessions set and maps it into the network.
Mapping of the selected SFCR can either be random or follow the
criteria of cost optimization in Section 3. In this case, the generated
solution will differ from the current solution in the mapping of one
SFC. However, this may involve changes to other system parameters,
such as the number of open servers and VNF instances. Following this
criterion, a subset of neighboring solutions of a pre-established size can
be generated.
The second and third variants re-map all the SFCRs associated with
a randomly selected VNF instance and candidate server, respectively.
The mapping of selected SFCRs is done following the criteria of cost
reduction (best cost) only. The main reason for this is to avoid overlay
deteriorating the quality of the current solution given the presence
of a greater number of selected sessions. The objective of these two
approaches is to introduce higher modifications in the current solution
to better explore the solution space and help to escape from local
optima. In all the strategies, SFCR mapping is performed by verify-
ing placement constraints and considering only their near candidates
(i.e., those that satisfy service latency requirements). In this way, only
feasible solutions are generated. By taking these types of changes into
account, the following two methods are proposed:
• NS_3T: The set of neighboring solutions is generated by always
considering the three previous approaches. Specifically, a neigh-
bor solution (or a set of solutions for changes of type 1) is
generated for each type of change.
• NS_ST: Unlike the previous method, this method selects the types
of changes to be used according to the quality of the generated
solutions and temperature values. Initially, it starts by considering
the three types of changes until a more effective solution is found.
Once such a solution is detected, only neighboring solutions of
the first type are generated. The decision to switch back to a
diversification strategy is made after finishing all the iterations
at a certain temperature with probability 𝑝𝑑 . The probability of
using diversification is a function of the fraction of remaining
temperatures (𝑇𝑟 ) and the best solution ratio updates at each
temperature (Q). Specifically, if 𝑝𝑑 is greater than Q and lower
than 𝑇𝑟 , then the diversification strategy is applied. Notably, there
is a higher probability of diversification at the beginning of the
algorithms since both 𝑇𝑟 and Q decrease with the temperature.
Once all the neighbor solutions have been generated according to
the specified method, their associated cost is determined, and the one
with the best (lowest) cost is selected as the neighbor solution.
8
Journal of Network and Computer Applications 197 (2022) 103269
Markov Chain Length: The MCL, also called temperature length
(𝐿𝑚𝑘𝑣 ), defines the number of iterations for a given temperature value.
To ensure a thorough exploration of a given solution, a large MCL is
recommended. However, this implies longer execution times. To avoid
long Markov chains, cooling schedule strategies with small decrements
in the temperature may be adopted (Atiqullah and Rao, 2001). The use
of a fixed temperature length during the whole simulation time is a
common approach. Nevertheless, for large-scale optimization problems,
this may not be the most suitable strategy (Wang et al., 2019a). In this
regard, studies such as (Martinez-Rios and Frausto-Solis, 2012, 2008;
Tian et al., 2019; Wang et al., 2019a) have proposed different strategies
for variable MCL. In Martinez-Rios and Frausto-Solis (2012, 2008), the
length of the MC is varied inversely to the temperature update. In Tian
et al. (2019), the higher the temperature, the longer the length of the
MC, whereas in Wang et al. (2019a), a higher MCL in intermediate
temperatures is recommended.
As in the aforementioned studies, we adopt a VMCL approach.
However, unlike those that vary the length of the Markov chain with
the temperature value, our strategy adapts it according to the quality
of the generated solutions. Our strategy takes two values for the MCL
and switches between them. Specifically, a lower value (𝐿𝑚𝑘𝑣𝑚𝑖𝑛 ) is
selected when no better solution is found at a temperature; otherwise,
a maximum value (𝐿𝑚𝑘𝑣𝑚𝑎𝑥 ) is adopted. Another procedure could be to
gradually increase or decrease this parameter using adjusting factors
or an ordered list of values. Nonetheless, we prefer the former for
its simplicity and also to accelerate the algorithm execution time. In
both cases, the MCL is adjusted at the end of a temperature length,
if required. This strategy allows for greater exploitation of effective
solutions as well as reductions in computation time.
Restart strategy: Restart strategies are a popular diversification tech-
nique to escape strong local optima and increase the probability of
finding a global optimum. Two aspects associated with this mechanism
are the restart conditions and the restart point. Our SA solution restarts
if the current best solution has not been improved for a fixed number of
consecutive temperatures (restart period, 𝑃𝑟 ). The restart point requires
the specification of the current solution and temperature. For the latter,
many approaches can be followed such as reestablishing the initial
temperature, multiplying the current temperature by a factor greater
than 1, or using the temperature value that the system had when the
current best solution was found. Nonetheless, our proposed strategy
does not allow any of the aforementioned re-heating methods to reduce
the probability of accepting worse solutions as well as the computation
time.
For the restart solution, studies such as (Addou et al., 2019; Yamada
et al., 1994) select the current best solution. However, a drawback to
this approach is that it may end up restarting to the same point of the
solution space if no update of the best solution is applied during the
restart period. Thus, it may restart to the local optimum from which
one is trying to escape. By contrast, some papers prefer to generate
random solutions (Lin and Vincent, 2015) or combine different strate-
gies (Nakakuki and Sadeh, 1994). Our proposed strategy for selecting
the restart solution is more in line with the latter approach since
different methods may be used to generate the restart solution. This is
done by randomly choosing between a set of possible solutions (e.g., the
initial solution, current solution, and best solution) and constructing a
new restart point from it. For the latter, we randomly select some open
servers and reassign their assigned SFCR following the criteria of the
best cost.
Once a new restart point has been generated, we must ensure that
it is located in a different region of the solution space to escape from a
current local optimum, in the case of being trapped in one. Moreover,
we verify that the selected restart point has not been used before to
promote diversification during the restarts. For the former, we keep a
record of neighboring solutions generated during the restart period and
verify whether the new solution is an outlier in this set. To determine if
we are in the presence of an outlier, the z-score formula is used. Thus,
I. Leyva-Pupo and C. Cervelló-Pastor Journal of Network and Computer Applications 197 (2022) 103269

we can compare how far the restart solution cost is from the mean cost
of the neighboring solutions. To verify the diversification condition, we
defined a Tabu list in which the costs of the selected restart solutions
are stored. The length of this list is conditioned by the stop condition
(i.e., number of permissible restarts). A new restart solution will be
accepted only if it has not been previously used as a restart point and
it significantly differs from the ones recently visited during the restart
period. Notably, that the acceptance criterion of the restart point is
based on the cost (objective function) of the solutions instead of the
placement configuration since this is much simpler to analyze.
Termination condition: This indicates when the SA algorithm should
end. Our proposed solution has two stopping conditions. The first
criterion is the one used by the CSA; that is, it stops analyzing neigh-
bor solutions when a certain temperature value is reached. The sec-
ond condition is to terminate when a fixed number of restarts has
been performed. Thus, our SA will stop executing when one of the
aforementioned conditions is satisfied.

4.3. SA-UPC procedure

Fig. 2 depicts the flowchart of the proposed SA-UPC. Our solution

starts by generating (or reading) the initial solution and evaluating its
cost according to (23). Subsequently, the current and the best solutions
(𝑆𝑐 and 𝑆𝑏 ), as well as their costs (𝐹𝑐 and 𝐹𝑏 ), are initialized with
the initial solution parameters (configuration and cost). Moreover, the
initial temperature value (𝑇 ) and length of the Markov chain (𝐿𝑚𝑘𝑣 )
must be set. Given that initially, the probability of improving the
current best solution as well as of accepting worst solutions is high,
the 𝐿𝑚𝑘𝑣 parameter is started at its minimum value. Additionally, a
neighboring solution strategy needs to be specified.
At each iteration in the inner loop, a set of neighbor solutions is
generated according to the selected criteria. For each solution, the UPF
placement requirements are verified and it is accepted only if those
constraints are satisfied. Otherwise, a new one must be generated. Next,
their costs are determined and the one with the lowest value is selected.
Then, the costs of the neighbor and current solutions are compared
(𝛥𝐹 = 𝐹 (𝑆𝑛 ) − 𝐹 (𝑆𝑐 )). If the neighbor solution is better than the
current state, the latter is updated, and whether this also outperforms
the current best solution is verified. If this is the case, the placement
configuration of the best solution and its associated cost are replaced
by the ones of the neighbor solution. Moreover, if the NS_ST method
has been selected, only neighbor solutions of type 1 will be generated
during the next iterations until otherwise specified. Furthermore, it is
indicated to set the MCL to its maximum value at the next temperature
Fig. 2. Flowchart of the proposed SA-UPC.
iteration. In this way, greater exploitation of the solution space can be
achieved. By contrast, if the neighbor solution is worse than the current
one, it will be accepted as the current solution with probability 𝑝𝑎 .
Once all the iterations in the inner loop have been performed, connected through APs, and MEC servers are co-located along with the
the restart counter is updated. The latter increases when there is no APs. The ENs have a service area with a radius of 1 km and the gNB
update of the best solution during the current temperature length; inter-site distances are 500 m and 200 m for gNBs located in urban
otherwise, it resets. The algorithm restarts if no better solution is and dense urban areas (Alliance, 2018), respectively. Bidirectional
found during a restart period. As a result of this process, the current links are represented as two individual links, one in each direction.
solution is modified, the MCL is increased and the NS_ST method, if Furthermore, it was assumed that the gNBs and the link among gNBs
selected, adopts a diversification phase. Finally, the stopping condition and APs have enough resources to support their associated users and
is verified. If this is satisfied, the algorithm terminates and returns their traffic. Additionally, the bandwidth between MEC servers was set
the best solution found thus far. Otherwise, it proceeds to update the to 10 Gbps (Chen and Liao, 2019).
current temperature value, the MCL, and the neighborhood strategy if For the service demand, three types of SFC were considered. Each
the NS_ST method is used. The MC length is set to its minimum value SFCR corresponds to an active PDU session formed by one to three
when there is no best solution improvement. UPFs. The PDU sessions’ service latency requirement, processing de-
mand, and bandwidth were randomly generated according to the pa-
5. Performance evaluation rameters specified in Table 4. The number of active PDU sessions was
varied in the interval of [10–400]. The simulation parameters for the
5.1. Simulation setup UPC model and proposed heuristic are summarized in Table 4.
The UPC model was implemented using the Python-based package
For the simulations, a network topology representing a 5G medium- Pyomo (Hart et al., 2017) and Gurobi (Gurobi Optimization, 2021) as
scale scenario was generated (see Fig. 3). In this scenario, the gNBs are its underlying solver, whereas the PC-UPC and SA-UPC algorithms were

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I. Leyva-Pupo and C. Cervelló-Pastor Journal of Network and Computer Applications 197 (2022) 103269

the mapping process when a VNF service request cannot be mapped due
to the absence of feasible candidates. Specifically, the previous VNF in
the chain is reassigned to a different candidate (the next best location)
if any. This process repeats until successful mapping of the current VNF
has been achieved or no feasible candidate remains to be screened for
the previous VNF.
Fig. 4 summarizes the gathered results. As a general observation,
the analyzed metrics can be seen to increase with the number of
PDU sessions. This figure, also reveals that our proposed heuristic
outperformed the benchmarks. It not only had the best cost behavior
but also the lowest execution time and fewer reassignments. Concretely,
the PC-UPC was able to map all the SFCRs without reassigning any
VNF. Noteworthily, had it not been for the reassignment procedure, the
baselines would have ended up rejecting the reassigned PDU sessions.
Furthermore, higher cost reductions as well as fewer VNF reassign-
ments were achieved when accounting for SFC requirements along
with current network conditions (i.e., PC-UPC and SGH). Consequently,
these results showcase the importance of using the look-ahead and
priority sorting processes during the mapping of SFCRs.
Fig. 3. 5G access network topology.
5.3. SA-UPC performance evaluation
Table 4
Simulation parameters for the UPC.
The main objective of this subsection is to assess the performance
Network Topology
of the proposed SA. Since our solution introduces several modifications
w.r.t to the CSA, we ran various experiments by gradually introducing
Number of gNBs 121
Number of ENs 13
each of the changes. Doing so allowed us to investigate their advan-
Number of links 174 tages in greater depth. First, we evaluated the proposed neighborhood
Number of shortest paths 1742 methods when a non-restart–stop mechanism was used for a fixed MCL
Scenario dimensions 5 × 5 km2 (FMCL) of 20 iterations. Next, we studied the effects of our restart–stop
PDU Sessions strategy by comparing it with a classical restart approach in which the
Number of PDU sessions [10-400] current best solution is always used as the restart point. Finally, we
Bandwidth requirement [1 Mbps, 10 Mbps, 20 Mbps] analyzed the performance of the variable MCL strategy versus a fixed
Processing demand [0.1 CPU, 0.2 CPU] approach. For the tests, the initial and final temperature values were set
Latency requirement [0.9 ms, 1 ms]
to 100 and 0.01, respectively, and geometric scheduling with a cooling
Propagation and Processing Delays
factor (𝛼) of 0.9 was used.
RTT delay in the RAN (𝑇𝑟 ) 500 μ𝑠
Processing time of UPFs (𝑇𝑢 ) 50 μ𝑠
5.3.1. Initial solution and neighborhood methods
Processing time of DN (𝑇𝑑 ) 100 μ𝑠
Processing time of AP (𝑇𝑎𝑝 ) 5 μ𝑠 Figs. 5 and 6 summarize the simulation results, in terms of cost
Propagation delay in optical links 5 μ𝑠 and execution time, for the proposed NS approaches (i.e., NS_3T and
Other parameters NS_ST). Their performance was compared with a traditional method
Links capacity 10 Gbps
(NS_T1) that introduces small modifications to the current solution
MEC server capacity 16 vCPU (only changes of type one). For changes of type one, a neighborhood
UPF processing capacity 2 vCPU set with a size of five samples was used. Moreover, we investigated
UPF types 1:A-UPF, 2:MI-UPF, 3:I-UPF their behavior when different approaches were applied to determine
Number of VNF instance per type [1: 72, 2: 16, 3: 16]
the initial solution (IS). Specifically, two types of initial solutions were
Weight factors 𝛼 = 0.4, 𝛽 = 0.4, 𝛾 = 0.2
considered: the first was generated by randomly mapping the SFCRs in
candidates that comply with UPF placement restrictions, whereas the
second solution was the proposed PC-UPC heuristic.
coded in the Python programming language. For each experiment, we From Fig. 5 we can observe that NS_3T and NS_ST always had the
ran the solutions 15 times, which enabled us to present simulation re- best performance, achieving significant cost reductions compared with
sults with confidence intervals of 95%. The simulations were performed NS_T1. This was more noteworthy when the initial solution was of
on a workstation with a 3.30 GHz Intel Core-i9 processor and 64 GB of poor quality (see Fig. 5(a)). In this case, the proposed methods were
RAM. able to improve the initial solution by at least 60%, whereas NS_T1
only provided a cost reduction of up to 37% in the best case scenario
5.2. PC-UPC performance evaluation (i.e., S = 50). Moreover, both NS_3T and NS_ST provided similar results
regardless of the quality of the initial solution. By contrast, the final cost
To evaluate the effectiveness of the proposed heuristic, we com- obtained by NS_T1 was highly dependent on the initial solution quality
pared its behavior with two benchmarks in terms of the total cost, since it was unable to achieve significant improvements. The latter is
the number of reassigned VNFs, and execution time. These baseline depicted in Fig. 5(b), where the cost of the initial and final solutions
solutions were greedy-based heuristics called Greedy (GH) and Sorted for NS_T1 can be observed not to differ significantly.
Greedy (SGH). Both solutions assign SFCRs to those VNF instances Regarding the methods’ effects on the SA running time (see Fig. 6),
and servers that offer the lowest cost (i.e., minimize the objective the NS_T1 method had the lowest impact with values around four and
function (23)). Additionally, SGH orders the SFCRs by following the two times smaller than NS_3T and NS_T1, respectively. This behavior
same criteria as our proposed algorithm. Moreover, to avoid SFCR was anticipated since the proposed methods introduce more transfor-
rejections and guarantee similar comparison conditions, we included a mations to generate the neighbor solutions. Concerning the effects of
VNF reassignment procedure. This procedure takes one step back into the initial solution on this metric, we can appreciate that the execution

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I. Leyva-Pupo and C. Cervelló-Pastor
Fig. 4. Performance comparisons vs. different numbers of PDU sessions.
Fig. 5. SA-UPC placement cost for different NS methods.
time of NS_T1 was similar for both types of initial solutions since it did
not depend on the quality of the generated solutions. This was not the
case for NS_ST and NS_3T, which experienced an increment when the
proposed heuristic was used as the initial state. This is because more
sessions had to be re-mapped since the servers and VNFs had more
sessions assigned as their number was smaller. Moreover, NS_ST per-
formed more diversification processes in an attempt to find improved
solutions given the fewer updates of the best solution. Furthermore, the
simulation time of NS_ST remained much lower at all times than the
one obtained by NS_3T with a difference of at least 1.6 times for both
types of initial solutions. Therefore, NS_TS can provide similar costs to
NS_3T at a lower execution time by adapting the neighborhood search
to the quality of the generated solutions and temperature values.
The obtained results demonstrate that NS methods that combine
exploration with the exploitation of the solution space provide superior
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Journal of Network and Computer Applications 197 (2022) 103269
Fig. 6. SA-UPC execution time for different NS methods.
results compared with the traditional methods. Nonetheless, this is at
the expense of higher execution times.
5.3.2. Restart–stop criteria
This subsection evaluates the performance of the proposed restart
(PR) method against a classical restart (CR) approach in which the
current best solution is always used as the restart point. Moreover, it
analyzes the effects of different stop periods on the quality of the final
solution and execution time of the SA. These experiments were realized
with an FMCL of 20 iterations per temperature value and a random
initial solution. Moreover, the proposed restart approach generates
the restart point based on the current best solution by completely
reassigning the PDU sessions allocated to a maximum of two servers
selected at random.
Figs. 7(a) and 7(b) illustrate the SA output cost for a restart period
of three temperatures and a stop condition of three and five restarts,
I. Leyva-Pupo and C. Cervelló-Pastor Journal of Network and Computer Applications 197 (2022) 103269

Fig. 7. Obtained cost for different restart–stop periods. Fig. 8. Execution time for different restart–stop periods.

Table 5
MCL values considered in the experiments.
respectively. From both figures, it can be appreciated that the proposed
Group Approach MCL Notation
restart approach, represented by striped bars, always provides solutions
with lower costs than the baseline (bars without stripes), regardless Variable 10 & 20 VMCL_1020
I Variable 10 & 30 VMCL_1030
of the NS method. Moreover, w.r.t. the effects of more restarts in the
Fixed 20 FMCL_20
stopping condition, slight improvements in the proposed NS methods
Variable 20 & 40 VMCL_2040
were noted for both the classical and proposed restart approaches. II Variable 20 & 50 VMCL_2050
These observations were more noticeable for the NS_T1 method, which Fixed 40 FMCL_40
depends on the restart solution to incorporate diversification and thus
for improving the exploration of the solution space. In this regard, we
stress that, unlike the PR, the CR was unable to enhance the output
solution for NS_T1 despite the increment in the number of restarts. The 65% faster. Moreover, the difference between the running time of
latter provides evidence that a classical restart may be unable to help NS_3T and NS_ST was significantly reduced. The aforementioned results
the algorithm escape from local optima, thus rendering it inefficient. demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed restart–stop approach,
Fig. 8 depicts the running time for both restart strategies. In this not only in increasing the probability of finding better solutions but
respect, the proposed restart mechanism required a higher execution also in reducing the SA running time.
time than the baseline. However, except for the NS_3T method with 150
PDU sessions, this difference was not highly significant. The main cause 5.3.3. VMCL strategy
of this behavior is that most of the time, the proposed restart enabled The effects of the VMCL strategy were assessed under different
improvement of the current best solution, which in turn delayed the conditions for the proposed NS methods. In particular, its behavior
occurrence of restarts and subsequently of the stopping condition. was tested for SA with and without restart–stop against an FMCL
Additionally, the execution time tended to increase with the increment approach and using a random solution as the initial state. For the
of the stop period, as was to be expected. experiments, different values for the upper and lower bound of the
By comparing the behavior of the SA with and without the proposed Markov chain were considered. To facilitate the analysis of the results,
restart–stop strategy, we noticed that not only was the initial solution these approaches were divided into two groups according to the MCL
significantly improved (compare Fig. 5(a) against Fig. 7(a)) but also values, as shown in Table 5.
the computing time of the SA was too (refer to Figs. 6(a) and 8(a)). The impact of different MCL approaches on the cost of the SA final
Specifically, for the NS_ST, NS_T1, and NS_3T methods, the restart– solution is depicted in Fig. 9. By examining this figure closely, we can
stop with 𝑃𝑆 = 3 and 𝑃𝑅 = 3 resulted in reductions in the execution appreciate that, in general, no significant improvements in the quality
time of at least 50%, 65%, and 70%, respectively. Likewise, for 𝑃𝑆 = of the output solutions were obtained despite the number of inner
3 and 𝑃𝑅 = 5, the SA algorithm was more than 40%, 50%, and iterations increasing (e.g., FMCL_20 vs. FMCL_40). Additionally, for

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I. Leyva-Pupo and C. Cervelló-Pastor Journal of Network and Computer Applications 197 (2022) 103269

Fig. 10. SA execution time for different MCL strategies with and without restart–stop.
Fig. 9. SA output cost for different MCL strategies with and without restart–stop.

increased with the temperature length. However, the proposed VMCL

both the NS_3T and NS_ST methods, the VMCL strategy provided similar solutions managed to maintain slower paces than their corresponding
or better costs than its fixed analogous. This was more remarkable
fixed variants. The latter was most notable for greater MCL values
for the second group of MCL variants where the length of the chain
was greater. The exception to this behavior was VMCL_1020 which in (i.e. group II) or when using SA without restart–stop.
general had worse performance than FMCL_20. The reason behind this
Lastly, as a general note, we wish to highlight that combining
is that VMCL_1020 performed poorer scans of the solution space since
restart–stop with VMCL did not affect the quality of the final solution
it realized fewer iterations.
Fig. 10 illustrates the effects of the MCL on the running time of the since better results were obtained when using restart–stop than when
SA for different numbers of PDU sessions. As was expected, this metric it was excluded.

13
I. Leyva-Pupo and C. Cervelló-Pastor
Fig. 11. Total cost vs. different numbers of SFCs.
5.4. UPC performance evaluation
In this subsection, we evaluate the performance of the proposed
solutions according to the following metrics: overall cost, execution
time, number of open servers, number of UPFs, and average E2E
delay. We also compare the SA-UPC with a variant of the CSA, which
generates neighbor solutions by only introducing changes of type one.
Moreover, this baseline (CSA_T1) always used the best current solution
as the restart point and had an FMCL of 20 iterations per temperature
value. By contrast, SA-UPC adopted the proposed restart method and a
VMCL (i.e., VMCL_1030). Additionally, a restart period of three temper-
atures and a stopping condition of three restarts were considered. The
proposed heuristic was used as the initial state for all the variants of SA.
Please note that for the ILP model, simulation results are presented for
up to 100 active PDU sessions since it was unable to solve the problem
for higher numbers of sessions within a reasonable time.
5.4.1. Overall cost
Fig. 11 represents the average total cost for the proposed solutions
and the baseline for different values of PDU session requests. From
this figure, we can observe that the total cost increased with the
number of active PDU sessions since more servers and VNF instances
must be activated to cope with service demands. The minimum costs
were always provided by the ILP and the proposed variants of the SA-
UPC (i.e., SA-UPC_3T and SA-UPC_ST). Notably, this solution provides
almost identical results to the mathematical model when using either of
the proposed NS methods. In fact, the NS_ST method was able to obtain
similar results to NS_3T when an initial solution with acceptable quality
was used in combination with the proposed restart–stop strategy. By
contrast, the PC-UPC had the worst performance since it was used as
the initial solution for all the SA variants. However, in the worst-case
scenario, its difference from the optimal was at most 22%.
Additionally, the SA-UPC was able of improving the initial solution
by approximately 2.3% and 17% whereas the baseline only provided
a cost reduction of 8.5% in the best-case scenario. The improvement
achieved by this method was null or scarce most of the time (i.e., less
than 3%). In the cases where the proposed SA had poor performance,
with results similar to the CSA, the proposed heuristic (initial state of
the SA) obtained results close to the optimal (S = 40) or the minimum
number of VNF and open servers (S = 300 and 400) needed to meet the
required services demand. Thus, the only possibility for improvement
in those cases was in terms of latency, which had the least importance
in the objective function.
5.4.2. Running time
In addition, we measured the average running time required for
each solution to solve the UPC problem. As Fig. 12 reveals, a significant
difference existed between the running time of the ILP model and
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Journal of Network and Computer Applications 197 (2022) 103269
Fig. 12. Running time vs. different numbers of SFCs.
the heuristic-based solutions. The execution time of the former grew
exponentially with the number of active PDU sessions. Moreover, for
numbers of sessions higher than 100, the ILP model was unable to
obtain the optimal solution due to the huge number of feasible solu-
tions. By contrast, the heuristic-based solutions’ running time increased
linearly with the number of SFCRs. In this regard, the best computing
time was provided by the PC-UPC heuristic which was able to solve
the problem within a couple of seconds (i.e., less than 10 s) with an
average optimality gap below 13.5%.
Regarding the performance of the proposed SA compared to the
baseline, the CSA_T1 was on average 2.8 and 5.5 times faster than SA-
UPC_ST and SA-UPC_3T, respectively. However, this speed was at the
expense of a poor quality improvement for the initial solution.
5.4.3. Other metrics
Finally, we offer a glimpse of other aspects of the generated so-
lutions by representing the behavior of each term in the objective
function (23), see Fig. 13.
Figs. 13(a) and 13(b) depict the average number of active servers
and instantiated UPFs, respectively. The first observation here is that
the PC-UPC heuristic was able to provide solutions that differ from
the optimal, at most, in the activation of one server or VNF instance,
but not both simultaneously. Moreover, the SA-UPC approach was the
one that most closely resembled the performance of the mathematical
model. The latter also applies to the average E2E delay parameter (see
Fig. 13(c)), where both solutions behaved quite alike. In this regard,
it is worth mentioning that our proposed SA obtained lower average
latency values than the baseline even in cases where it had fewer open
servers or VNF instances.
The presented ILP formulation for the UPC problem becomes com-
putationally intractable as the size of the involved sets increases (e.g.,
the number of SFCRs, VNF types, and ENs). As evidenced by the
conducted experiments, its computational time grew exponentially with
the number of PDU sessions until the point of being unable to de-
termine a solution when the number of SFCRs was higher than 100,
in a medium-size 5G topology compounded by 13 ENs. Moreover,
as the UPC problem difficulty increases, does its execution time and
the required computational resources. To overcome these limitations,
we have presented heuristic and metaheuristic-based solutions. They
introduce various mechanisms that notably enhance their performance.
Our simulation results showcased that these solutions are feasible and
efficient approaches to tackle the problem. Specifically, they provide
near-optimal results in significantly less time in addition to outper-
forming some existent benchmarks. Thereby, our proposed strategies
provide the necessary flexibility and efficiency to meet 5G service
stringent requirements (e.g., latency and device density) and reduce
their deployment and operational costs. Furthermore, these approaches
can help network operators and service providers efficiently plan and
deploy their services and network functions, as well as study and
analyze the behavior of different parameters.
I. Leyva-Pupo and C. Cervelló-Pastor
Fig. 13. Performance of each term in the objective function vs. different numbers of
PDU sessions.
6. Conclusion
In this study, we investigated the 5G UPC problem. The problem
was formulated as a multi-objective ILP model aimed at minimizing
expenditures associated with PDU session provisioning and the en-
hancement of QoS (i.e., network response time). The model is bounded
by stringent service latency requirements and physical network capa-
bilities (e.g., links bandwidth and node processing capacity). Moreover,
it encompasses several constraints such as UPF-specific, VNF order, and
routing path.
Since the problem was demonstrated to be NP-hard, a specific
heuristic (PC-UPC) along with an SA solution (SA-UPC) was provided
to solve it in polynomial time. Simulation results revealed that the
proposed solutions not only outperformed the benchmarks but also
obtained near-optimal results, when the problem scale was small, in
significantly less time. Specifically, the PC-UPC algorithm was able
to solve the problem within a couple of seconds with an average
optimality gap of around 13.5%. By contrast, the proposed variants
of SA allowed for results almost identical to the optimal results but at
the expense of higher running times. Moreover, through extensive sim-
ulations, we demonstrated that the proposed modifications improved
the performance of the SA algorithm, thus, enabling it to provide
high-quality outputs regardless of the initial solution.
15
Journal of Network and Computer Applications 197 (2022) 103269
For future work, we will adapt our proposed solutions for the UPC
to a dynamic environment in which the numbers of PDU sessions and
user positions vary over time. Specifically, our primary goal is to design
reconfiguration strategies (mathematical models and heuristics) and
scheduling mechanisms to determine the optimal time to reconfigure
according to different criteria. Furthermore, we will also intend to
investigate the incorporation of reliability approaches (backup VNFs
and paths) to enhance the robustness of the placement and chaining
solution.
CRediT authorship contribution statement
Irian Leyva-Pupo: Conceptualization, Formal analysis, Method-
ology, Data curation, Validation, Visualization, Software, Writing –
original draft. Cristina Cervelló-Pastor: Conceptualization, Formal
analysis, Validation, Methodology, Supervision, Writing – review &
editing, Visualization, Funding acquisition, Project administration.
Declaration of competing interest
The authors declare that they have no known competing finan-
cial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to
influence the work reported in this paper.
Acknowledgments
This work has been supported by the Agencia Estatal de Investi-
gación of Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación of Spain under project
PID2019-108713RB-C51/AEI/10.13039/501100011033 and through a
predoctoral FPI scholarship.
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Irian Leyva-Pupo received her B.Sc. degree in Telecommunication and Electronic
Engineering from the Havana University of Technology Jose Antonio Echeverria
(Havana, Cuba). She is currently a Ph.D. student at the Universitat Politècnica de
Catalunya (UPC), Barcelona, Spain. Her main research interests include optimization
problems, NFV, SDN, and 5G networks.
Cristina Cervelló-Pastor received her M.Sc. and Ph.D. degrees in Telecommunication
Engineering, both from the Barcelona School of Telecommunications Engineering
(ETSETB), Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya (UPC), Barcelona, Spain. She is an
Associate Professor and she has been the Head of the Network Engineering Department
at UPC from 2012 to 2020. She is currently the leader of the research group on
Broadband Network Modeling and Evaluation (BAMPLA). She has been responsible and
actively participated in diverse national and European competitive projects IA@EDGE,
5GCity, NOVI, FEDERICA, ATDMA, A@DAN, Euro-NGI, Euro-FGI, EURO-NF, etc.) and
private funding R&D projects. In parallel, she has published diverse papers in national
and international journals and conferences and she has been supervising several
theses in the field of optimization, management, optimal resource allocation, topology
discovery, and routing in SDN/NFV and 5G.