NETWORK FUNCTION VIRTUALIZATION-NFV
OVERVIEW
Network Function Virtualization (NFV) is an initiative to virtualize network functions – both data plane as well as control plane, basically any function that was previously carried out by proprietary, dedicated hardware devices such as a switch, router, modem, etc., that typically was a dedicated hardware coupled with necessary software and management functions. It aims to transform traditional networks that was characterized by single box solutions from multiple vendors into the next generation network architecture by leveraging industry standard IT virtualization technology to consolidate many virtual network functions onto industry standard high volume servers, switches and storage, which could be located anywhere based on the need, say in Datacenters, Network Nodes and in the end user premises.
ALTEN Calsoft Labs has been working on building a “software centric, vendor agnostic open source” based solutions since 2012, even before the term NFV was officially coined. As pioneers in the Network Function Virtualization space, we have the distinction of providing services to some of the industry’s first NFV Proof of Concepts (PoC) and commercial deployments in L4-L7 Switching, Load Balancing, WAN Optimization, Security Gateways, Virtual Private Network (VPN) Gateways, Virtual CPE (vCPE), Virtual WLAN Controller and Virtual Broadband Remote Access Server (vB-RAS) solutions.
A member of ETSI NFV ISG, ALTEN Calsoft Labs has a team of experts in virtualization techniques, VNF (Vitual Network Function) architecture, Intel® DPDK based VNF performance optimization, VNF development, testing, packaging and deployment in Enterprise and Service Provider environments.
Benefits of Network Function Virtualization (NFV)
- Rapid services creation and roll-out
- Reduced operational complexity eliminating truck roll to end user premises and common operating procedures (standardized)
- Operational efficiencies achieved through automation, centralization of monitoring functions
- Power savings due to optimization of hardware resources
- Standard and open interfaces between network functions and their management entities enabling vendor independence
- Hardware agnostic enabling freedom from supplier lock-ins
- Pooling of compute, network and storage resources such that a service provider may deliver services such as cloud computing as well as network services to consumers or enterprise business users
- Service Providers can run Virtual Network Function (VNF) instances inside an NFV Infrastructure – in order to meet service performance objectives like latency, reliability, high availability, etc.
- NFV Infrastructure (NFVI) enables Service Provider an additional commercial service offer in addition to existing catalog of network services as well as serve global customers
It is no surprise that as the world of virtualization is making rapid progress,
still some open issues exist on NFV
still some open issues exist on NFV
- Existence of VNF along with traditional non-NFV i.e. physical network elements
- VNFs from multiple providers must co-exist in a common NFVI
- Support measurement of SLA related parameters and failure notification and diagnostics in a commercial NFV Infrastructure as a service (NFVIaaS) between service providers
Virtualization Targets
A number of network functions traditionally are deployed using a dedicated hardware infrastructure in today’s enterprise and service provider networks.
- Customer Premises Equipment (CPE)
- Access Router or Edge Router
- Firewall, IDS/IPS & other security appliances
- WAN Optimization Controller
- Deep Packet Inspection (DPI)
- Network Performance Monitoring
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OUR SERVICES
ALTEN Calsoft Labs offers product engineering and systems integration services to network equipment manufacturers (NEMs) and network operators to help them build, deploy, manage and orchestrate Virtual Network Functions (NFV Orchestration).
VNF Development
- Architect, design and develop VNFs
- Intel DPDK based VNF optimization
- Support for different virtualization
architectures (LXC/Para/Full Virtualization) - Support for different virtual environments (VMware/KVM/Xen)
Benchmarking and Performance Tuning
- Architect, design and develop VNFs
- Benchmarking VNF performance in Enterprise/Telco cloud environments
- Performance improvements with Intel®
DPDK based optimization - Fast path optimization using offloading techniques
VNF Deployment
- Prepare VNF deployment blueprint
- Migration of VNFs to a different Hypervisor/
OS environment - VNF testing using industry leading test tools/equipment
Service Assurance
- Debug and fix functional, performance and interoperability issues
- Patch Management
- Support on boarding of new Network Services
- Conduct Lab / Field Trials for new Network Services
- Upport migration to a new NFVI-PoP in the operator’s network
- Monitor and update Service and VNF lifecycle management policies
VNF Management & NFV Orchestration
- Design and development of FCAPS and VNF lifecycle management framework
- Develop VNF packages for service deployment
and service lifecycle management - Implement Network Services lifecycle management features
- Integrate and validate with third-party NFV orchestrators or legacy NMS/OSS
VNF Porting and Testing
- Porting from custom silicon to COTS
x86 platform - Migration of VNFs to a different Hypervisor/
OS environment - VNF testing using industry leading test tools/equipment
Operations Support
- Service Roll-out Management
- Provisioning & Configuration Management
- Service Monitoring
- L2/L3 Technical Support
- NFV Infrastructure Management
- Fine tune VNF-FG and Service Lifecycle Management Policies
ALTEN Calsoft Labs offers robust open-standards based high performance VNF and NFV Orchestration frameworks to help NEMs to accelerate development and deployment of NFV solutions.
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