The deployment of virtual network functions (VNFs) at edge servers potentially impairs the performance of latency-sensitive applications due to their computational cost. This work considers a new approach to addressing this problem that provides line rate acceleration of VNFs by employing field-programmable gate array (FPGA) equipped edge servers. This approach has been validated by practical use cases with both TCP and UDP as underlying protocol on a physical testbed environment. We examine the performance implications of executing a security VNF at an FPGA-equipped edge server. We experimentally demonstrate reduced VNF execution latency and energy consumption for a real-time video streaming application in comparison with a software-only baseline. In particular, the results show that the approach lowers VNF execution latency and power consumption at the edge by up to 44% and 76%, respectively, in our experiments while satisfying time constraints and maintaining confidentiality with high scalability. We also highlight the potential research challenges to make this approach viable in practice.

由于计算成本，在边缘服务器上部署虚拟网络功能 (VNF) 可能会损害对延迟敏感的应用程序的性能。这项工作考虑了一种解决此问题的新方法，该方法通过采用配备现场可编程门阵列 (FPGA) 的边缘服务器来提供 VNF 的线速加速。这种方法已经通过实际用例验证，TCP 和 UDP 作为物理测试平台环境中的底层协议。我们研究了在配备 FPGA 的边缘服务器上执行安全 VNF 的性能影响。与纯软件基线相比，我们通过实验证明了实时视频流应用程序的 VNF 执行延迟和能耗降低。特别是，结果表明，在我们的实验中，该方法将边缘的 VNF 执行延迟和功耗分别降低了 44% 和 76%，同时满足时间限制并以高可扩展性保持机密性。我们还强调了使这种方法在实践中可行的潜在研究挑战。