lean nfv ops: operational considerations and use cases in mobile networks

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LEAN NFV OPS:

OPERATIONAL CONSIDERATIONS IN MOBILE NETWORKS

- USE CASES -

Jose de Francisco

GSMA North America – Chicago, September 22 2015


2

DISCUSSION AGENDA

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albert_Einstein#/media/File:Albert_Einstein_as_a_child.jpg

"If you can't explain it simply, you don't understand it well enough."

1. NFV deployment strategies

2. Present Mode of Operations

3. Network Softwarization

4. The Journey

5. Virtualization of Mobile Core and IMS (ETSI NFV Use Case #5)

6. Service Function Chaining

7. Reliability, Availability and Serviceability

8. DevOps: Development & Operations

9. Standards

10. Early Challenges

11. Future Mode of Operations

12. Closing comments


3

NFV DEPLOYMENT STRATEGIES


4

PRESENT MODE OF OPERATIONS (PMO) CHALLENGES

high lead times for new system and/or service introduction estimated in months and years where technology silos prevail

complex overall Method of Procedure given hardware specifics and planning processes. Challenging end-to-end operations

low server to administrator ratio in environments comprised of largely physical elements, tightly integrated software and hardware under multiple management systems

high human latency due to number of manual deployment, maintenance and upgrade process, communications, forms, also impacted by network and IT disconnects

LT: Lead Time

MOP: Method of Procedure

S/A: Server to Administrator Ratio

HL: Human Latency


5

PRESENT MODE OF OPERATIONS (PMO) CHALLENGES

compromised time to market, lengthy ordering to activation process, difficult to measure end users’ QoE

overlong capacity planning does not favor agile reconfiguration of services and components to meet demand curves

costly environment which cannot dynamically apply big data subjected to real-time changes; underutilized assets and budgets consumed by maintenance

taxing end to end management under separate fulfilment and assurance for core, access, ims, with service upgrades often susceptible to failures

cause effect correlation

feedback loopCoD: Capacity on Demand

TTM: Time to Market

QoE: Quality of Experience

LT: Lead Time



HL: Human Latency

leading lagging indicators

high lead times for new system and/or service introduction estimated in months and years where technology silos prevail

complex overall Method of Procedure given hardware specifics and planning processes. Challenging end-to-end operations

low server to administrator ratio in environments comprised of largely physical elements, tightly integrated software and hardware under multiple management systems

high human latency due to number of manual deployment, maintenance and upgrade process, communications, forms, also impacted by network and IT disconnects


6

IS “NETWORK SOFTWARIZATION” THE ANSWER?

“I do not paint a portrait to look like the subject, rather does the person grow to look like his portrait.”

Network Functions Virtualization (NFV):

• software (SW) is decupled from hardware (HW)

• telecom systems (IMS, EPC, RAN) become software instances

• virtual network functions (VNF) run on virtual machines (VM)

• VNFs are decomposed and modularized suited for N+K redundancy

• shared infrastructure based on general purpose, high volume COTS HW

• enables application multi-tenancy and distributed architectures

• automation optimizes lifecycle management and resource orchestration

Software Defined Networking (SDN):

• control (traffic decisions) decoupled from data plane (traffic forwarding)

• programmable and automated networking

• centralized global network view and intelligence

• controller sends packet handling rules to the switch

translating IT virtualization concept to Telecom

Salvador Dalí

Photograph of Figueres Train Station Mural - JdF


7

ETSI NFV REFERENCE ARCHITECTURE

NFV Management & Orchestration

NFV Orchestrator (NFVO)

Multi-VIM management

VNF placement

VNF policy enforcement

VNF Manager (VNFM)

VNF deployment

VM level monitoring (CPU/storage)

Virtual Infrastructure Manager (VIM)

Virtual resource management at hypervisor level

http://www.etsi.org/technologies-clusters/technologies/nfv

https://portal.etsi.org/NFV/NFV_White_Paper2.pdf


8

THE JOURNEY: EARLY VIRTUALIZATION

• apps run on VMs

• multiple applications run on generic hardware

• apps in the component form consuming 1 or more VMs

• apps can scale by adding more VMs

• various component level scaling is possible

• purpose built HW/ASICs

• tight coupling between HW & SW

• monolithic apps with specific HW configurations

• scales by adding more HW

• rigid service creation

• 1-to-1 app to purpose built HW ratio

PMO


9

THE JOURNEY: FMO

IaaS – Infrastructure as a Service

common infrastructure management

resource orchestration

application multi-tenancy

PaaS – Platform as a Service

solution templates

key performance indicators

selective lifecycle automation

distributed architectures

Service level orchestration

fulfilment & assurance

predictive analytics

end-to-end automation

autonomics, self-organizing


10

ETSI NFV USE CASE #5: VEPC AND VIMS

• “Mobile networks are populated with a large variety of proprietary hardware appliances […] leverage standard IT virtualization technologies to consolidate different types of network equipment located in NFVI-PoPs.”

• Virtualization target:

• Mobile Core Network Functions:

• EPC Core & Adjunct Network Functions e.g. MME, S/P-GW, PCRF, etc.

• 3G/EPC Interworking Network Functions e.g. SGSN, GGSN, etc.

• All IMS Network Functions e.g. P/S/I=CSCF, MGCF, AS.

• “Flexible allocation of Network Functions on such hardware resource pool could highly improve network usage efficiently in day-to-day network operation.”

• “Higher service availability and resiliency provided to end users/customers by dynamic network reconfiguration.”

• “Elasticity: capacity dedicated to each Network Function can be dynamically modified according to actual load on the network, thus increasing scalability.”

• “Topology reconfiguration: Network topology can be dynamically reconfigured to optimize performances.”

• “Creation of a competitive environment where innovative implementations of 3rd party network applications can be supplied by unlocking the proprietary boundaries of current Mobile Core and IMS implementations.”

• “Designing newer resiliency schemes becomes possible by utilizing the portability of the VNF instances in the form of, but not limited to VM relocation, replication, etc […] the relocation of the managed sessions and/or connections needs to be handled appropriately to achieve operator desired service continuity and service availability.”

• “Coexistence of virtualized and non-virtualized network functions.” http://www.etsi.org/deliver/etsi_gs/NFV/001_099/001/01.01.01_60/gs_NFV001v010101p.pdf


11

USE CASE #5 – LEAN NFV OPS DEMO

dynamic lifecycle use cases:

• agile service selection and deployment

• SFC: Service Function Chaining

• Capacity: growth / degrowth with analytics

• RAS: Reliability, Availability, Serviceability

• service continuity in HA: High Availability

• RCA: Root Cause Analysis

• smart placement (Bell Labs simulation)

http://www.telecomtv.com/articles/poc-zone/proof-of-concept-lean-nfv-operations-12422/

demo environment:

• end to end 100% virtualized VoLTE

• solutions:

• VNFs: vRAN, vEPC, vIMS

• OSS: Motive Dynamic Operations

• SDN: Nuage Networks

• MANO: CloudBand Management System

• VIM: OpenStack

• NFVI: CloudBand Cloud Nodes

• ecosystem: Intel, WebRTC, RealSense/Personify


12

SERVICE FUNCTION CHAINING (SFC) DEMO

• SFC leverages NFV and SDN

• service function is decoupled from network topology, physical network is not required to be modified

• users contract different services comprised of several applications

• application sets are dynamically “stitched” in real time

• enables sharing information between service functions

• simplify access to virtualized apps

• up sell / cross-sell services

Lean NFV Ops demo screenshot

operational flexibility:

• application driven provisioning

• intelligent traffic steering, capacity adjusted based on utilization

• common deployment of service functions

• usage across multiple domains

• SSO: self-service operations


13

RELIABILITY, AVAILABILITY, SERVICEABILITY (RAS) DEMO

• service assurance encompasses cloud, network, application analytics and compliance

• advanced correlation relies on predictive analytics and unified event management

• automation involves root cause analysis and resolution

• autonomation provides controls and override, involves operations team and enables immediate attention

• a recommendations engine presents alternative solutions starting with the most optimal

Lean NFV Ops demo screenshot

addressing RAS:

• dynamic CoD (Capacity on Demand)

• automated recovery and service continuity

• sustaining HA (High Availability) environment

• distributed system, N+K redundancy, active standby failover

• smart placement for VM relocation, replication

• delivering fine grained and correlated analytics


14

CONTINUOUS INTEGRATION (DEVOPS)

issue tracking

version control

continuous integration

build

hooks and triggers

install

deliver/publish

integration test

code review

automation

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PMO FMO

software + hardware delivery focus on software delivery

dedicated hardware (appliance model) virtualized and cloud infrastructure

long lead times short iterative cycles

fixed release schedule flexible, frequent delivery

waterfall development model agile software development

manual processes

single source repository

highly automated build

self-testing

automated version control

undetected issues can snowball early issue detection

back end loaded process iterative process

compartmental handovercross-functional process and workstyle

collaborative delivery

risk averse entrepreneurial


15

STANDARDIZATION

interfaces between physical and virtual resources in the context of wireless applications and the mobile core

Zero Touch Orchestration, Operations and Management for NFV-O and SDN; defines interfaces between OSS and orchestration, interest in VNF descriptor alignment

involves network service orchestration and service function chaining

research agenda

OpenStack (VIM), Mistral (workflow), HOT (orchestration template) and Tacker, which uses Oasis’ TOSCA

NFVI layer (cloud nodes)

“in November 2012 seven of the world's leading telecoms network operators selected ETSI to be the home of the Industry Specification Group for NFV”


16

ECOSYSTEM AND TECHNOLOGY READINESS

launch, live ops, LCM

validation in relevant environment

agile development

use case - proof of concept projects

basic technology research

• readiness level provides understanding on maturity

• the journey can plot different paths based on readiness, adoption levels and matchmaking choices


17

EARLY INDUSTRY CHALLENGES

1. shifting from PoC focus to successfully crossing “the ops’ chasm”

2. separating hype and vaporware from what actually works today

3. assessing maturity and technology readiness levels (the journey)

4. sprawling virtualization silos and conflicting management systems

5. bloated architectures shortchanging operations, scalability or performance

6. working with physical and virtual elements in hybrid environments

7. industry standards and fragmentation

8. diverging from cloud fundamentals that we fell in love with

9. legacy technologies’ last gasp

10. end-to-end (eco)systems engineering and open source

11. business transformation and organizational dynamics

“Toto, I've a feeling we're not in Kansas anymore”.

The Wizard of Oz, 1939

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Wizard_of_Oz_(1939_film)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Wizard_of_Oz_(1939_film)#/media/File:The_Wizard_of_Oz_Lahr_Garland_Bolger_Haley_1939.jpg


18

LEAN NFV OPS

lean: effective & highly efficient service delivery at any scale

Lean NFV Ops

efficient

Service Level Agreement

lowest cost perworkload

bit

high utilization levels

high availabilityeffective


19

FUTURE MODE OF OPERATIONS (FMO)

1. Shorter LT: agile delivery throughout service lifecycle:

1. streamlining: end-to-end value stream mapping of the service

2. service lifecycle orchestration (automation)

3. user friendly self-service and customization from ordering to activation

4. continuous integration (DevOps)

5. leveraging ecosystem and open source (e.g. OpenStack)

1. Streamlined Ops: deconstructing and modularizing:

1. decoupling software from dedicated hardware

2. working with virtual machines

3. lifecycle orchestration templates, policies

4. asset pooling and on-demand (JIT) resource allocation

5. application modeling (information, data models)

6. smart load placement

7. addressing service continuity and RAS by operating in HA

8. furthering service decomposition and N+K, active standby failover

9. analytics: monitoring, alarm correlation, data driven ops, root cause analysis

10. predictive analytics, autonomics (machine learning, full scale automation) leading to self-organizing systems

DevOps: Development and Operations

HA: High Availability

JIT: Just in Time

N+K: redundancy model

Ops: Operations

RAS: Reliability, Availability, Serviceability

RCA: Root Cause Analysis

LT: Lead Time



HL: Human Latency


20

FUTURE MODE OF OPERATIONS (FMO)

3. Higher S/A ratio: harmonizing management systems

1. COTS based hardware consolidation

2. centralized management of virtual and distributed environments

3. end-to-end visibility: abstractions, single pane of glass

4. autonomation (automation with controls)

4. Lower HL:

1. cross-functional behaviors: organizational culture, workstyle

2. agile project management, continuous improvement

3. clear roles and responsibilities

4. context enabled adaptive processes

5. training and professional development

LT: Lead Time



HL: Human Latency

COTS: Commercial off the Self

E2E: End to End


21

CLOSING THOUGHTS AND Q&A

Present Mode of Operations (PMO):

• widespread industry concerns about the risks and cost of ever growing complexity

• overly lengthy lead times compound the problem in today’s changing environment

• hybrid physical and virtual environments are expected to co-exist in the short and mid terms

• making “network softwarization” and “dynamic services” happen dominates work on next generation systems

• service level orchestration becomes an operational objective

• NFV and SDN involve emerging technologies and IT practices that are set to disrupt the telecommunications industry

• “cloud” presents new challenges for network operators, some already addressed by fast evolving “cloud solutions”

• technical prowess alone is not enough as organizational and business models are morphing

• starting and staying “lean” at any scale throughout NFV’s journey is of the essence

Future Mode of Operations (FMO):

2 page paper 10+ min video 60 min webinar

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bgcNRBl0nVQ

https://event.on24.com/eventRegistration/EventLobbyServlet?target=reg20.jsp&eventid=1003257&sessionid=1&key=A6D2CED68DEB269D30F7D2A8C2301D5F&sourcepage=register

http://webform.alcatel-lucent.com/r/?id=hf5e0c8,283d39b2,283d3e81&SP_MID=675101106&SP_RID=38172785

LEAN NFV OPS – ADDITIONAL MATERIALS

THANKS!

https://www.alcatel-lucent.com/solutions/cloud@Alcatel_Lucent @ALU_Cloud









http://www.slideshare.net/jdefrancisco/lean-nfv-ops

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lean nfv ops: operational considerations and use cases in mobile networks

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