Verify service level agreement compliance of network function chains based on a stateful forwarding graph

A system comprising at least a memory and a processor coupled to the memory, the processor executing instructions stored in the memory to:

• identify an equivalent class of packets passing through network function chains based on a set of flow rules, wherein the equivalent class of packets traverse the same set of paths and belong to the same performance group;
• identify the set of paths that the equivalent class of packets traverse through;
• calculate a first set of Service Level Agreement (SLA) performance metrics for the equivalent class;
• use at least the first set of SLA performance metrics to augment a stateful forwarding graph (SFG);
• and
• verify whether the network function chains comply with a SLA based on the SFG.

A non-transitory machine-readable storage medium encoded with instructions executable by at least one processor of a network device, the machine-readable storage medium comprising instructions to:

• parse a set of flow rules to identify an equivalent class of packets passing through network function chains;
• identify a plurality of paths that the equivalent class of packets traverse;
• determine performance specified in a Service Level Agreement (SLA) for the equivalent class;
• construct a SLA performance augmented stateful forwarding graph (P-SFG);
• and
• verify SLA compliance of the network function chains based on the P-SFG.