NFV - Management and Orchestration

In the past couple of years new technologies have evolved in the networking domain, Software defined networks and Network function virtualization.

Software defined network is an approach which defines the decoupling of the control plane from the data plane.  Control planes are essentially the “data directors,” instructing the data plane on where to transfer packets of data. The data plane then establishes the best path and carries the data to its destination. By separating these two functions, the user can program the open-source network to act in accordance with business requirements—using a central management interface in a vendor-neutral manner.

Network function virtualization is an approach which is mainly proposed by the Telco’s to decouple the network functions from the hardware. Specifically, it involves implementing these network functions using software that can run on a range of commodity industry standard server hardware which can be moved to, or instantiated in, at various geo locations in the network as required programmatically, without having to install new equipment. This enables significant reduction in Capex, OpEx, Space and Power Consumption while providing scale of IT for Telco’s. NFV solutions deliver compelling performance; maintain network reliability and resiliency while keeping costs under control.

This blog is focused on NFV, hence we will more concentrated on it. In the previous blog of NFV we covered the open source tools for various layers/components of NFV architecture framework. In this blog we are focusing on developing the understanding on Management and Orchestration layer/component.

With the increasing service request demands, growing networks it has become a big challenge to network operators to manage them. Hence this triggers the need for management and orchestration to be considered as one of the most important component of the NFV solution.

Orchestration Framework helps customers to easily deploy, manage and orchestrate Virtual Network Functions (VNFs) and roll out new services, thereby simplifying network operations.

Management framework focuses on the lifecycle management of the software based network function, management of the infrastructure resources to these network functions.

There is a standard defined by ETSI for Management and orchestration to be implemented in NFV.  We have prepared a presentation based on the understanding developed after reading the ETSI specification. Click here to view.

References:

h     1. http://blogs.cisco.com/datacenter/software-defined-networking-cisco-style/

       2.  http://www.techmahindra.com/sites/blogs  Beyond_Buzz_words_SDN_NFV_vs_Automation_Orchestration.aspx

3     3. http://docbox.etsi.org/isg/nfv/open/latest_drafts/NFV-MAN001v061-%20management%20and%20orchestration.pdf