  Allocating resources to virtualized network functions and services to meet
service level agreements is a challenging task for NFV management and
orchestration systems. This becomes even more challenging when agile
development methodologies, like DevOps, are applied. In such scenarios,
management and orchestration systems are continuously facing new versions of
functions and services which makes it hard to decide how much resources have to
be allocated to them to provide the expected service performance. One solution
for this problem is to support resource allocation decisions with performance
behavior information obtained by profiling techniques applied to such network
functions and services.
  In this position paper, we analyze and discuss the components needed to
generate such performance behavior information within the NFV DevOps workflow.
We also outline research questions that identify open issues and missing pieces
for a fully integrated NFV profiling solution. Further, we introduce a novel
profiling mechanism that is able to profile virtualized network functions and
entire network service chains under different resource constraints before they
are deployed on production infrastructure.
