Learnings from Carrier SDN Deployments

Open Networking Summit

Sharon Z Barkai

2

Carrier Infrastructure Today

Functions & Networking: Problems

Infrastructure Virtualization

Principles

Network Virtualization Overlays

OpenFlow + LISP: SDN Fabric

EPC-Gi Virtualization Example

Learnings & Results from Production Deployment

Agenda

3

Network Functions Tied to

Routing Locations

Network Programing Tied to

Routing Interfaces

VRF, VPLS,

LSP,VLAN..

Carrier Network Infrastructure Today

4

Some functions can fit inside existing

boxes

Require years of multi-vendor product

roadmap

Change box capacity when enabled

Cause redesign of topology

aggregation..

Most functions don't fit existing boxes

Are organized as "accessory" rails

By function-sequence permutation..

Awkward Inline Programming

Switching, Routing, and ..Rails?

5

Packet Gateways

Load Balancers

DPI Boxes

Optimizers & Transcoders

Firewalls & Service Nodes

IMS Cores

Session Border Controllers

Switches & Routers

All Sorts of Boxes

6

Users, Regions, Subnets, are tied

to core resources

Capacity has to be pre-planned

per regional peak

Causes fragmented deployments

Causes complex and slow feature

velocity

Causes low average utilization

20%80%Standby

80% 20%

Fragmentation, Waste, Stranded Resources

7

Network Functions Network Overlays

Infrastructure Virtualization Principles

8

ALG

Switch

3rd Party

OpenFlow Switch

Controller (Flow

Handler)Mapping

System

OpenDaylight

CXTR

Subscribers &

Functions

Network Virtualization Overlay (NVO)

Underlay & Mapping

9

Management and

Orchestration

SDN LISP Fabric Layout

ALG

Switch

OF Switch

Controller (Flow

Handler)

Mapping System

OpenDaylight

CXTR

CXTR

Access Internet

CXTRCXTR

Underlay Spine &

Backbone

Connecting the Gi Cloud

RAN Internet

Overlay & Mapping

TCP

Optimization

Video

Optimization

Header

Enrichment

RouterPDN

Gateway

AAA

Subscriber

Registration

and Mapping

Instantiation

11

Subscriber A

Subscriber B

Encap

Decap Encap

Decap

Mapping EPC-Gi Flows On SDN Fabric

12

Production Deployment Stats – US Tier-1 Mobile Network

22 sites

Over 50 cities

Over 50M subscribers

Over 9 years cumulative up-time

Over 1,000 TeraBytes processed per day

Over 160Gbps daily peak download traffic rate

Over 13,000,000,000 header enrichments per day

Over 30,000,000,000 analytics records generated per day

39% download rate improvement due to TCP-Optimization on LTE

All in software on COTS servers

13

IP

Mapping Database

North Bound

NVE

NVE

NVE

NVE

FunctionsUsers < - - FlowMapping - - >

Thank You