elastic network functions: opportunities and challenges

UNIFY is co-funded by the European Commission DG CONNECT in FP7

Elastic Network Functions: Opportunities and Challenges

Robert Szabo (Ericsson Research) EU-FP7-UNIFY Project

Outline • ETSI

• Elastic VNF with ETSI

• SDN • Elastic VNF with ETSI + SND

• More SDN • A bit of UNIFY

• Elastic VNF with UNIFY

• Summary

May 21, 2015 Robert Szabo - keynote at SBRC 2015 2


Backgrounds: ETSI NFV

Network Function Virtualization (NFV) About faster, easier, more cost-effective deployment of services by:

• Building flexible topologies out of a mixture of virtual and dedicated Value Added Service components

• And delivering different sets of service to different traffic and different users


ETSI NFV History • Established in February 2013 • Proposed, driven, and led by Operators • Under the Umbrella of the

European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI) • Is an Industry Specification Group

• write recommendations • identify gaps in existing technology specifications

• With over 200 operator and vendor members


ETSI NFV Goals • Reduced operator CAPEX and OPEX through reduced equipment

costs and reduced power consumption • Reduced time-to-market to deploy new network services • Improved return on investment from new services • Greater flexibility to scale up, scale down or evolve services • Openness to the virtual appliance market and pure software

entrants • Opportunities to trial and deploy new innovative services at lower

risk


ETSI NFV Architecture • Network Function

Virtualization Orchestrator (NFVO)

• Virtualized Infrastructure Manager (VIM)

• Mind • EMS, OSS, BSS


ComputingHardware

StorageHardware

NetworkHardware

Hardware resources

Virtualisation Layer VIM

VNFManager(s)

VNF 2

OSS/BSS

NFVI

VNF 3VNF 1

Execution reference points Main NFV reference pointsOther reference points

Virtual Computing

Virtual Storage

Virtual Network

EMS 2 EMS 3EMS 1

Service, VNF and Infrastructure Description

Or-Vi

Or-Vnfm

Vi-Vnfm

Os-Ma

Se-Ma

Ve-Vnfm

Nf-Vi

Vn-Nf

Vl-Ha

NFVO

ETSI Management and Orchestration Framework


• Separated resource management horizons: • NFV-Orchestrator • VNF-Management, • Virtualized

Infrastructure Management

ETSI NFV: Take Away • No change in traditional management functions

(OSS/BSS, EMS)

• Concern on how to move from physical network functions to virtualized



Elastic Network Functions: Part 1

Service Elasticity • Telecom cloud requires elastic scaling of VNFs based

on the dynamic service traffic load • Virtualization provides the elasticity to

scale up / down, scale out / in without any of the overhead of managing physical servers


Elastic VNF • A VNF may not be designed for scaling

up/down as scaling up/down may require the restart of the VNF • states may be lost

• Any VNF may be capable for scaling in/out

• But good design creates small VM footprint to group VMs as a pool of one VNF function


VNF VNF VNF

VNF

VNF VNF

UP --

DOWN

restart

restart

VNF

Example: Intrusion Detection System (IDS)


Example: IDS (cont’d)


Example: IDS Scaling • System view


Example: IDS Scaling • Deployment View


Example: IDS Scaling • Elastic control

sequence


Example: IDS Scaling • Scale up

• stop, increase, start


UP --

DOWN

restart

restart

Example: IDS Scaling • Scale out

• How to share the load?

• Service agnostic VNFM?

• EM aware of virtualization?


VNF

VNF VNF VNF

VNF

VNF

Elastic VNF: Take Away

• Can virtualization be transparent w.r.t. EMS?

• Can NF scaling control be NF agnostic?



Backgrounds: Software Defined Networking (SDN) Part 1

SDN: Problem Statement Control Plane Abstractions?


Data Plane Abstractions

?

SDN: Problem Statement (cont’d) • Control plane must compute

forwarding state • Consistent with particular low-

level hardware/software • Based on entire network

topology • For all routers/switches

(i.e., must configure each one)

Requirements • Be compatible with low-level

hardware/software • Make decisions based on entire

network • Compute the configuration of

each physical device


abstraction for

forwarding model

abstraction for network

state abstraction for configuration

SDN Abstractions • abstraction for forwarding model • abstraction for configuration

• abstraction for network state

• abstraction for forwarding model • abstraction for configuration


SDN controller

Forwarding engine

Control plane

Data plane

Applications

NBIApplications

Control plane

SDN: Take Away • SDN Controller has no control logic but creates network

wide abstraction for control applications


Example: IDS


Example: IDS Scaling • Scale up

• stop, increase, start


UP --

DOWN

restart

restart

Example: IDS Scaling • Scale out




• Can NF scaling control be NF agnostic? • WHERE???



Backgrounds: Software Defined Networking (SDN) Part 2

SDN Abstractions • abstraction for forwarding model • abstraction for configuration

• abstraction for network state

• abstraction for forwarding model • abstraction for configuration


SDN controller

Forwarding engine

Control plane

Data plane

Applications

NBIApplications

Control plane

SDN Architecture • Logically centralized

control • Optimized resource usage

• Pragmatics • Controllers may federate

in hierarchical trees (or as peers)


Management

Controller plane

Data plane

Management

SDN controller

Network element(≥ 1)

NE resources

ApplicationplaneSDN

application (≥ 1)

SDN applicationManagement

Management (OSS)

Coordinator

Coordinator Agent (≥ 1)

SDN control logic

(business agreements, credentials, policy, etc.)

Agent (≥ 1)...

Slide by courtesy of Dave Hood

SDN Management, Business Boundaries, Recursion


SDN controller B

(Physical) data plane

Manager B

Customer G application

Controller plane (Virtual) data plane (Virtual) data plane

Customer R application

SDN controller G


Manager G

SDN controller R


Manager R

Controller plane

Controller plane (Virtual) data plane

B orchestrates control actions received on its (virtual) data

planes Slide by courtesy of Dave Hood

SDN Network Virtualization Virtualization is an abstraction performed on behalf of a particular client or app


Red SDN controllerGreen SDN controller

Blue SDN controller

Green-1

Provider Blue’s network

Provider Blue’s internal virtualization for client Green

Further abstraction created by Green for its own purposes

Provider Blue’s internal virtualization for client Red

Disjoint

CPI CPI

CPI CPI

Slide by courtesy of Dave Hood

6

9

10

8

7

5

3

2

1

4 12

13

1415

16

23

22 25

24

11

17

19

18

20

21

G24

G25

G15

G16

R14

R20

R22

G21

R23

R19

R3

R2

G1

G4

R13

G18

SDN Virtualization &Recursion

G1

G4

G18 G21

G15

G16

G24

G25

Green-1 G15G16

G24G25

G1G4

G18 G21

SDNC Red

SDNC Green

SDNC Blue

SDNC Red

SDNC Green

SDNC Blue

SDNC Red

SDNC Green

SDNC Blue

(a) (b) (c)

Example of abstract network

Details of virtualization

Multi-Level SDN Virtualization


GR3GR1 GR4

GR5

GR2

G15

G16

G24

G25

G1

G4

G18 G21


• SDN is “mostly” about networking

• VIM is both software and networking

• No logical centralization in the MANO

SDN Controller++ with Virtualized “Data” Planes

ETSI MANO vs SDN


wide abstraction for control applications • But it is assumed that an orchestrator ctrl app is included!

• Abstraction means virtualization for a particular client application

• Client == Northbound API consumer


SDN Orchestrator “Agent 0”


Management

Controller plane

Data plane

Management

SDN controller

Network element(≥ 1)

NE resources

ApplicationplaneSDN

application (≥ 1)

SDN applicationManagement

Management (OSS)

Coordinator

Coordinator Agent (≥ 1)

SDN control logic

(business agreements, credentials, policy, etc.)

Agent (≥ 1)...


UNIFYing Carrier Network and Cloud Resources http://fp7-unify.eu

http://fp7-unify.eu/




UNIFY Design Principles • Logically centralized

control plane architecture (like SDN)

• Combine software & network abstraction to a joint • Virtualization • Programming


• Logically centralized resource orchestration

• Joint software & network • Virtualization

• Programming

• Multi-level / recursive architecture


UNIFY Architecture

Concept: Virtualization

• Big Switch & Big Software (BiS-BiS) Virtualization • Combined

compute & networking

• Virtualized “infrastructure view”


Virtualizers at RO


NFVO, VNFM, OSS, BSS

May 21, 2015 47

VNF Forwarding Graph mapped to Virtualizers

Robert Szabo - keynote at SBRC 2015

Elastic Control Cf-Or presents similar resource control service as Sl-Or, but in a different context • optimized for NFs

instead of “management components”


UNIFY Reference Points


• Sl-Or

• Joint virtualization

• Joint programming

• Recursion

• Cf-Or • Elastic control

• Joint virtualization

• Joint programming

Joint:= compute & network

Example: IDS


Example: IDS Scaling - ETSI • Scale out


Example: IDS Scaling - UNIFY • Scale out




• Can NF scaling control be NF agnostic? • WHERE??? • at a Resource Orchestrator



Some Extra

Who can spot…

… a duplicated component?


So What? Infrastructure and tenant control is mixed up That is what virtualizers are good for May 21, 2015 Robert Szabo - keynote at SBRC 2015 57


Summary

ETSI NFV: Take Away • No change in traditional management functions

(OSS/BSS, EMS)

• Concern on how to move from physical network functions to virtualized



wide abstraction for control applications

• Abstraction means virtualization for a particular client application

• Client == Northbound API consumer


Elastic VNF: Take Away • Can virtualization (elasticity) be transparent w.r.t. EMS?

• Yes, if controlled by an “app” as part of the realization of the NF

• Can NF scaling control be NF agnostic?

• at a Resource Orchestrator (like UNIFY)


Challenges • Autonomous NF decomposition • Population of the elastic control interface • Security related to the elastic control interface

• Resource pool, user/service policies • Multi-level operations

• Elastic ctrl app controls an NF with elastic ctrl app… • Optimizations

• tenant vs infrastructure control • Predictable Performance


Predictable Performance Assumptions • VNFs are part of a

VNF Forwarding Graph (VNF-FG)

• Multiple VNFs • End-to-end service

guarantees • Multiple NFVI-PoP

• High availability


Data Protection Management (DPM)

Predictable Performance Scale out



Predictable Performance A better scale out See draft-zu-nfvrg-elasticity-vnf-01



http://tools.ietf.org/html/draft-zu-nfvrg-elasticity-vnf-01











Further Reading • IEEE Network, May 2015 (Special Issue on Network

Function Virtualization: Opportunities and Challenges).


Acknowledgement UNIFY consortium (Nov 2013 – Apr 2016) Dave Hood for ONF/SDN slides Ericsson Brasil


Major Vendors:

SMEs:

Universities:

Project Management:

Research Institutes:

Major Service Providers:

Coordinator


Outlook

EU H2020/ 5G-PPP/ 5G Exchange (5GEx) Enable cross-domain orchestration of services • multiple

administrations or

• multi-domain single administrations


elastic network functions: opportunities and challenges

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