Oracle sees NFV moving further into the mainstream with the help of orchestration
Editor’s Note: With 2016 now upon us, RCR Wireless News has gathered predictions from leading industry analysts and executives on what they expect to see in the new year.
Network functions virtualization has come a long way in both popularity and practice in the last few years. According to a recent report from Research and Markets, communications service provider investments in NFV and software-defined networking will account for more than $20 billion by the end of 2020 – a high expectation indeed. NFV promises to drive down costs by virtualizing software to run on commodity hardware and provide orchestration to react faster to ever changing market demands. Great idea, but it may be a long ride to get there.
Despite the challenges, many CSPs are already well on the road to NFV. As we move into this new reality, reflecting on the journey helps to see where NFV is going, and better prepares us for what is required.
Reflecting on the journey
One of the primary reasons NFV was created was to reduce costs by leveraging IT virtualization technology to consolidate and manage network functionality across a variety of hardware platforms. Since virtualization has matured dramatically over the past decade with performance closely matching non-virtualized platforms, the communications industry is ready to consider deploying its critical, carrier grade functions on top of virtualized platforms. The advantage – network operators can manage software and hardware more like IT manages hardware and software. Just as the cloud has transformed the IT industry, NFV is transforming the communications industry by enabling CSPs to move beyond the limitations of proprietary hardware to revolutionize service agility and speed to market
Virtualized platforms such as KVM, OpenStack and VMware have been thoroughly tested in the IT domain, and with the exception of a few high performance media functions, many of the physical network functions have passed the test to run virtualized in carrier grade networks. With virtualization solving vendor-price lock-in problems, the new issue in this journey is with CSPs making decisions on when and how to deploy a network function on a virtualized box. Physical out-of-the-box network functions solve many of the existing procedures that providers must follow, such as the type of hardware; hardware speed, memory, CPU and initialization; the loading or installation of the software; the configuration of the software; connecting the box to other network boxes and more. In addition to the complexity of spinning up new virtualized images, in 2015, CSPs also worked toward conquering the layers of complexity inherent in bridging physical and virtual environments.
While the NFV journey has promised service agility, the devil is in the details on how you achieve this agility. This goes well beyond simply managing a network function and more into managing the managers of network functions, otherwise known as “orchestration.” The journey has revealed two areas where orchestrating virtualized network functions will revolutionize the industry:
New service offerings
Not only creating subscriber or enterprise based services in the traditional telecommunication operating support system model, but also introducing Web-like services that have an IT based lifecycle – such as those built on nimble platforms delivering applications like Skype, iMessage or WhatsApp.
Real-time, network agility
The ability to grow and shrink the network based on network demand, capacity or market demands. This would also allow a CSP to re-allocate resources based on network needs or market demands – for example, during large sporting events or natural disasters.
While physical network assets will not disappear entirely overnight, CSPs are actively adding in virtualized functions while leveraging the existing physical functions in a new hybrid network reality. However, CSPs still continue to lose revenues and NFV can help answer this distress call. So what’s the next step on the path to NFV success?
A finely tuned orchestra
To realize the true potential that NFV promises, providers must turn their attention to the interactions between VNFs and PNFs, creating a new reality of composite network functions. A CNF must be well coordinated – or better yet, orchestrated – from service design to data center operation, to conquer the layers of complexity that are inherent in bridging physical and virtual environments.
If you think about it like an actual orchestra – the chairs represent the physical hardware and orchestration the conductor. The conductor can say: “take away those five trumpets, and bring in cellos instead.” The conductor can make the orchestra members play any instrument – or utilize any network function – at any time to provide the audience with the ultimate musical experience. Intelligent orchestration is no different as it relates to NFV.
In 2015, CSPs learned this coordination will come to life through orchestration frameworks or orchestrators that best address functional requirements for operational simplicity. Simplicity is critical, no matter how complicated the networks and no matter how many layers are added in terms of systems, functions, services, orchestration and management technologies. The key to achieving this lies in an NFV implementation that incorporates “intelligent orchestration” based on a powerful combination of policy rules that govern network and service behaviors, as well as analytic feedback from run-time operations.
Without intelligent orchestration, CSPs will end up with more of the same when it comes to how they order, provision, deliver, support and bill for services. What good are VNFs on their own without the ability to coordinate and match them with existing PNFs? The flexibility that orchestration provides will enable CSPs to innovatively and agilely provide new services to their users – competing with the likes of Facebook, Amazon.com and Apple. These companies are at the forefront when it comes to service delivery and customer experience – and as CSPs continue to virtualize and orchestrate their networks, they are poised to revolutionize their businesses and compete with the customer data, brand recognition and service management systems of hugely popular organizations.
A look ahead
For the last few years, NFV has largely been about experimentation, proof of concept and soft field trials. CSPs have tried out new services and tested network or customer segments within “learning laboratories” in which they immediately put new offers to work. This “soft environment” has enabled CSPs to:
–Make dynamic adjustments to bandwidth and data-volume entitlements or gain control over quality of service parameters that drive innovation and open the door to the types of session-based, contextually-rich use cases customers really want.
–Gain meaningful insight into subscriber data profiles and information about state, usage, location, entitlements and restrictions.
–Help gauge and control the level of automation that new services drive into NFV implementation – for example, maintaining network operations consoles until the time is right for full automation.
However, CSPs are now at a point where basic virtualization has been tested. 2016 will be the year orchestration comes to life. CSPs will move from the lab to commercial service and we will begin to see real revenue-bearing services running on top of NFV. Success will depend on whether CSPs build NFV strategies around policy-driven, analytically charged management capabilities and the degree to which they have considered network, service, function and data center orchestration from the beginning.
NFV has been a long time coming for the industry and for CSPs. However, it’s time to move from experimentation to fruition. By separating the hardware from the software, virtualizing all of the network functions, and finally orchestrating VNFs and PNFs, providers can reduce operational costs, improve resource utilization and invest their time and energy where it really matters – developing and rolling out new and innovative services to their customers. 2016 will see NFV transition to the mainstream – and we can’t wait to see what that means for service providers.
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