communication networks reloaded - intel nfv workshop

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COPYRIGHT © 2015 ALCATEL-LUCENT. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

Communication Networks Reloaded

Jose de Francisco, Cloud Innovation Center (CIC)

Intel NFV Workshop. Palo Alto, November 30 2015

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Agenda

1. The evolution of “useful” things

2. Deployment strategies

3. Challenging Present Mode of Operations

4. Defining “Lean” in NFV’s context

5. The journey to a Future Mode of Operations

6. Virtualization of mobile core and IMS (ETSI NFV use case #5)

7. Service function chaining

8. Reliability, availability and serviceability

9. Deconstructing Lean NFV Ops

10. DevOps: Development and operations

11. Ecosystem mapping and technology readiness

12. Early challenges

13. Closing comments

14. Links to additional resources

“If you can’t explain it simply,

you don’t understand it

well enough.”

Alcatel, Lucent, Alcatel-Lucent and the Alcatel-Lucent logo are

trademarks of Alcatel-Lucent. All other trademarks are the

property of their respective owners.

The information presented is subject to change without notice.

Alcatel-Lucent assumes no responsibility for inaccuracies

contained herein.

Albert Einstein

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“The evolution of useful things”

Henry Petroski is an engineer

specializing in failure analysis and

professor both of civil engineering

and history at Duke University.

The Evolution of Useful Things

Published in 1992

Vintage Books, Random House, New York

ISBN 978-0-385-36489-8

“The form of made things is always subject to change in response to their real or perceived shortcomings,

their failures to function properly (…) there can be no such thing as ‘perfected’ artifact”

“There is an ongoing evolution of new needs created by the developers of new designs (…) that require

new tools for assembly and disassembly, and these new tools in turn enable still further new designs”

“Ill served by an advisor who looks too narrowly at technical indicators to prognosticate performance

in the marketplace”

“Focusing too closely on the immediate design problem (…) frequently results in solutions that

themselves give rise to more difficult design problems”

“Every technological change has the potential for being both cursed and praised”

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NFV deployment strategies

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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

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Lean NFV ops

Lean NFV ops

efficient

Service Level Agreement

Lowest cost per workload

bit

high utilization levels

high availability effective

“effective and highly efficient service delivery at any scale”

FMO PMO

crossing the chasm

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Drafting FMO’s journey

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 and assurance

Predictive analytics

End-to-end automation

Autonomics, self-organizing

Single pane of glass

Lifecycle management

Resource orchestration

Analytics

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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.”

• “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 third-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

Mobile core network functions:

– EPC core and 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.

Virtualization target:

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Service Function Chaining (SFC) demonstration

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

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

• Enables sharing information between

service functions

• Simplify access to virtualized apps

• Upsell/cross-sell services

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Reliability, Availability, Serviceability (RAS) demonstration

Lean NFV Ops demo screenshot

• 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

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

• Autonomation provides controls and

override, involves operations team

and enables immediate attention

• A recommendations engine presents

alternative solutions starting with

the most optimal

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Deconstructing Lean x NFV x Ops

Lean column adapted from Kim B. Clark and Takahiro Fujimoto, Product Development Performance

p. 172 and Mary and Tom Poppndieck, Implementing Lean Software Development p. 14.

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Continuous development & integration (DevOps)

Issue tracking

Version control

Continuous integration

Build

Hooks and triggers

Install

Deliver/publish

Integration test

Code review

Automation

Venn Diagram -https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DevOps#/media/File:Devops.svg

Automation

PMO FMO

Software + hardware delivery Focus on software delivery

Dedicated hardware (appliance model) Virtualized and cloud infrastructure

Long lead times Short, iterative cycles, one step release

Fixed release schedule Flexible, frequent delivery

Waterfall development model Agile software development

Manual processes

Single source repository

One click - highly automated build

Self-testing, bullet proof installation

Automated version control, notifications

Undetected issues can snowball Early issue detection

Back-end loaded process Iterative process

Compartmental handover Cross-functional process and workstyle

Collaborative delivery

Risk averse Entrepreneurial

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Ecosystem mapping and technology readiness

The journey can plot different paths based on readiness, adoption

levels and matchmaking choices

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

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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

The Wizard of Oz

“Toto, I’ve a feeling we’re

not in Kansas anymore”

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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

Future Mode of Operations (FMO):

• 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

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Additional sources

10’

20’

Webpage Videos

https://www.alcatel-lucent.com/solutions/nfv/lean-nfv-operations

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

http://www.telecomtv.com/articles/poc-zone/proof-of-concept-lean-nfv-operations-12899/

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communication networks reloaded - intel nfv workshop

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