Presentación Laboratorio NFV de Telefónica de Antonio Elizondo
1. Telefónica NFV
Reference Lab _
May 2015
Antonio Elizondo –
Head of Network Virtualization Strategy &
Technology @ Telefónica I+D – Global CTO
2. DISCOVER, DISRUPT, DELIVER
v
What is the big promise of Network Virtualisation?
It is an opportunity to build mouldable Networks and
redefine the Architecture:
Makes the infrastructure uniform and versatile
Reduces interoperability complexity
Improves management of risk in a changing and ambiguous
environment
Introduces capacity in an easy and flexible way
Fosters competition (new entrants) and innovation
Prevents hardware scale from being an entry barrier
3. DISCOVER, DISRUPT, DELIVER
AVOID VENDOR LOCK-IN
CARRIER-GRADE PERFORMANCE
CLOSE GAPS IN UNDERLYING TECHNOLOGIES
(HW, OS/hypervisor & VIM)
AVOID COSTLY INTEGRATION
What is the big debt of Network Virtualization?
Main challenges Our strategy to make it happen:
CONTRIBUTE TO KEY OPEN SOURCE PROJECTS
(KVM and OpenStack)
PRE-PRODUCTION REFERENCE IMPLEMENTATION (NFV Reference
Lab) INVOLVING ALL INDUSTRY, to minimize integration efforts
5. DISCOVER, DISRUPT, DELIVER
In 2014 Telefónica launched the NFV Reference Lab:
fostering the ecosystem while minimizing integration and avoiding vendor lock-in
NFVO
Proper HW
&
Hypervisor
config
VENDOR
VALIDATION
HERE: Network
Orchestration
on top of
Carrier-grade
OpenStack
VNFs
VENDOR
CERTIFICATION
HERE:
Simplest
integration
NFVI VIM =
OpenStack++
OFC++
BASELINE TECHNOLOGIES (commodity, non-
proprietary)
ECOSYSTEM
ECOSYSTEM
Others to
comeNew VNFs to be added here
Carrier-grade
OpenStack
going to
upstream
development
Some players have already accepted to play out of
their comfort zone, while others are gradually coming
>45 VNFs
>25 vendors
7. DISCOVER, DISRUPT, DELIVER
VNFs validation on NFV Reference Lab
• Validating generic aspects of VNFs as NFV elements
• Lab testing in reference environment
• Open RFI questionnaire since March 2014
• What is covered:
>45 VNFs under validation
• Capacity consumption
• Performance
• Deployment options
• VM interconnection options
• Assumptions on VIM
• Integration with NFV-O & VNFM elements
>25 Vendors
vRouter
vCPE
vBRAS
vFirewall
vDNS
vEPC
vSTB
vIMS
vSBC
vPCRF
virtual Load Balancer
vIDS
…
8. DISCOVER, DISRUPT, DELIVER
The life cycle of a VNF in the lab is now a mature process
Questionnaires filled in by the VNF provider
Elaboration of VNF descriptor (based on the questionnaire)
VNF on-boarding & Network Scenario setup
VNF configuration in the Scenario
Tests
Report & lessons learnt
Snapshot of the Scenario
Redeployment (if needed)
JUST 1 WEEK!
9. DISCOVER, DISRUPT, DELIVER
With this life cycle we are also overcoming a number of difficulties
• Early detection of wrong VNF behaviour or deployment issues in our NFVI
QUESTIONNAIRES
• VNFs with specific requirements
VNF DESCRIPTORS
• Proper interconnection of VNFs and with external network functions (e.g. traffic
generators)
NETWORK SCENARIOS
• Tests schedule requiring interruptions
Re-deployment of running network scenarios through SNAPSHOTS
Most of the initial difficulties came from the lack of a suitable MANO stack ready for the challenge…
10. DISCOVER, DISRUPT, DELIVER
Good progress on technology readiness has been achieved so far, being MANO
the less mature piece…
Management environment
Execution environment
Commodity Servers
& Switches
OS + Hypervisor
Virtualised
Infrastructure
Manager
Virtual Network
Functions
VNF Manager
NFVO
2013
2014
2010
(Bare metal)
?
(OpenStack)
(OpenVIM)
11. DISCOVER, DISRUPT, DELIVER
Enhanced Platform Awareness (EPA) consists of using server resources more
efficiently to assure performance…
CLOUD COMPUTING VIEW
MEMORY
I/O device
CPU
Core Core Core Core
Core Core Core Core
CPU
Core Core
Core Core
CPU
Core Core
Core Core
QPI
I/O
device
I/O
device
I/O
device
I/O
device
MEMORY
MEMORY
I/O device
NETWORK VIRTUALISATION VIEW Minimise QPI usage
Max. cache sharing
Min. mem. translations
Polling mode drivers
Full assigment to processTRAFFIC
I/O device
I/O device
Enable
hugepages
usage
12. DISCOVER, DISRUPT, DELIVER
…while avoiding unintended contention…
CPU
QPI
I/O
device
I/O
device
Core Core Core CoreCore
Core Core Core CoreCore
MEMORY
I/O
device
I/O
device
CPU
I/O
device
I/O
device
Core Core Core CoreCore
Core Core Core CoreCore
I/O
device
I/O
device
MEMORY
• Dedicated resource allocation:
• Memory: huge pages
• CPUs: not oversubscribed, isolated from host OS
• I/O devices: passthrough, SR-IOV
• Modern chipset families can even avoid cache memory contention
Host OS + Hypervisor VNF 1 VNF 2 VNF 3Not used
14. DISCOVER, DISRUPT, DELIVER
EPA must be coherent across the NFV elements, including the MANO stack
NFVO
NFVI
Hypervisor Openflow
Switches
Servers
VNFs
DPDK
NFVI optimized for
NFV (EPA-enabled)
Well designed VNFs -
leveraging EPA
VIM
EPA-enabled
VIM
Information Models
include EPA
requirements
NFV Orchestrator
interprets open Info
Model and optimally
deploys VNF
15. DISCOVER, DISRUPT, DELIVER
EXPERIENCE: 2 identical HW setups, but with different MANO will exhibit very
different performance…
TRADITIONAL CLOUD NFVSame:
• VNFs
• Servers
• Switches
• Hypervisor
• Network Scenario
Servers
Switch
Servers
Switch
•CMS acting as VIM
No Enhanced Platform Awareness
Networks based on vSwitch
•Descriptors à la cloud
•NFV-ready VIM (EPA enabled)
CPU & NUMA pinning, PCI
passthrough, hugepages, etc.
Networks based on ToR Openflow
switch
•Descriptors are EPA-enabled
TRADITIONAL CLOUD NFV
THEN WHAT’S THE DIFFERENCE?
VNFs VNFs
vRouter B
vRouter A vRouter C
20Gbps
20Gbps
16. DISCOVER, DISRUPT, DELIVER
NFV vs. Cloud
Line rate with 192
bytes frame size
Small frame sizes show real difference
between both scenarios
x100x100
Having x100 times better scalability should be sufficiently appealing!
Line rate with
1518 bytes
frame size
Even large frame sizes cannot hide the
actual difference between both
scenarios
17. DISCOVER, DISRUPT, DELIVER
Lesson #1. VNF performance requires platform awareness across the chain, not
just a few elements
… and needs to be percolated across
the stack to be enforceable
x100 BETTER
(same HW and VNFs)
EPA-ready
VIM
EPA-ready
MANO
NFVI –SW ready
for EPA
VNFs leveraging EPA
Information Models
with EPA attributes
Enhanced Platform Awareness (EPA) is
needed to get proper scalability…
CLASSIC CLOUD CANNOT PROVIDE
CARRIER-GRADE PERFORMANCE
PROPER VNF DESCRIPTORS ARE KEY
FOR EFFECTIVE ENFORCEMENT
18. DISCOVER, DISRUPT, DELIVER
Lesson #2. Basic L2 connectivity is often poorly solved
INTERFACE IDENTIFICATION PER VNF INCONSISTENT
… and often tied to MAC addresses!
NO BW GUARANTEES EVEN AT INTERFACE LEVEL
LACK OF PURE POINT-TO-POINT CONNECTIONS HAMPERS SCALABILITY FOR IP
EDGE SERVICES
LOAD BALANCING BETWEEN SERVERS
INEFFICIENTLY SOLVED AT SWITCH LEVEL
VNF A VNF BVNF X VNF A VNF BVNF X
RIGHT DEPLOYMENT WRONG DEPLOYMENT
EDGE
VNF
ACCESS & AGGR.
NETWORKS
(>10s thousand MACs)
VNF X 10 Gbps?10 Gbps?
Massive & Unneeded
MAC learning at NFVI
Server 1
Server 2
VNF A
VNF A
19. DISCOVER, DISRUPT, DELIVER
Lesson #3. VNF on-boarding is far from being seamless, killing the benefits in
terms of OPEX and Time to Market
• HEAVYWEIGHT INTEGRATION
(the default option)
• CLOSED ECOSYSTEMS
• SUBOPTIMAL DEPLOYMENTS
(inconsistent deployment models)
• ENTRY BARRIERS FOR SMALL PLAYERS
20. DISCOVER, DISRUPT, DELIVER
Lesson #4. Most approaches for lifecycle, focused on use cases of anecdotic
value for network operation…
LITTLE GAIN FROM AUTO-SCALING
- Peak periods correlated at PoP level!
AUTONOMOUS ACTIONS AT VNF LEVEL MAY LEAD TO INSTABILITY
- VNFs are often middlepoints of an E2E service
- Uncertain protection against chain reactions
APPROACHES TO LIFECYCLE OFTEN REQUIRE “EXCEPTIONS” FOR EVOLUTIONARY
DEPLOYMENTS
- Resource Orchestration and Service Orchestration often convoluted in NFV
- “Legacy” OSS needs clear boundaries between them!
… WHILE ADDING HUGE COMPLEXITY TO COMMON USE CASES
- Proposed abstractions, often unfriendly for network engineering
VNF A VNF CVNF B
Service A Service B Service C
=
TOTAL
21. DISCOVER, DISRUPT, DELIVER
Lesson #5. There are issues to orchestrate evolutionary multi-vendor
scenarios, even for simple ‘network creation’
•VNFs seen as PNFs from OSS point of view
•Predictable performance
•Scenarios can be saved and re-deployed
•Low entry barriers
Vendor- and VNF-agnostic
No formal integration
WHAT IS NEEDED TO START…
•No utilities for network design
•Low performance
No EPA awareness
•NFVO-OSS coordination is
often needed
•Not ready for creating
scenario snapshots
•“Sticky” MAC addresses
prevent re-deployment
•VNFs still need formal
integration with MANO!
High entry barriers in practice
… WHAT IS BEING OFFERED
22. DISCOVER, DISRUPT, DELIVER
So we created OpenMANO. Open WHAT?
Open: open source project released in GitHub under Apache 2 license
MANO: practical implementation of Management & Orchestration stack for NFV
https://github.com/nfvlabs/openmano
23. DISCOVER, DISRUPT, DELIVER
OpenMANO introduces the notion of network scenario via descriptors, which
hides complexity to network engineer…
VNF
VNF
VNF
VNF
VNF
VM
VM VM
VM
VM
VM
VM
VM VM
VNF
VNF
VNF
VM
VM VM
VM
VM
VM
VM
VM VM
NS
(NETWORK SCENARIO)
VNF
(SW-BASED NODE)
+
-
Abstraction
VM
(DEPLOYMENT UNIT)
24. DISCOVER, DISRUPT, DELIVER
…while provides a comprehensive set of connectivity options and assures
EPA deployment at low level…
Support of L2 networks with
passthrough and SR-IOV interfaces:
• E-Line
• E-LAN
Traditional E-LAN based on virtual
bridges/switches is still supported
VNF VNF
VNF VNF
VNF VNF
25. DISCOVER, DISRUPT, DELIVER
• Low-end laptops/PCs
• Functional tests
• Low cost
… and is a friendly environment for developers, minimizing entry barriers &
paving the way for DevOps
LOCAL DEVELOPMENT
&TESTING
• Real servers and switches
• Performance tests (EPA
can be enforced)
• Cost-effective shared
pool
SHARED POOL FOR
DEVELOPERS
• Production/pre-production
environment
• Real network scenarios
• Final service configuration
SERVICE PROVIDER
VNFD
VM images
VNFD
VM images
SAME IMAGES AND DESCRIPTORS ACROSS ALL THE CHAIN!
26. DISCOVER, DISRUPT, DELIVER
Conclusions
CLASSIC CLOUD CANNOT PROVIDE CARRIER-GRADE PERFORMANCE
- Does not have proper view of HW resources
- Introduces unintended contention in packet processing
PROPER VNF DESCRIPTORS ARE KEY FOR
EFFECTIVE ENFORCEMENT
- Need to be well-know by the developer community
ENHANCED PLATFORM AWARENESS ALLOWS TO OBTAIN
CARRIER-GRADE PERFORMANCE
- Needs to be coherent in all components
27. DISCOVER, DISRUPT, DELIVER
What are we doing now?
EPA-ready VIM released as open source in OpenMANO
Keep contributing to OpenStack for enablement of EPA features
VNFD and NSD standardization at ETSI
28. DISCOVER, DISRUPT, DELIVER
Want to know more about OpenMANO? Give it a try!
Fresh ideas and enthusiastic contributors are always welcome!
https://github.com/nfvlabs/openmano
Available at:
nfvlabs@tid.esQuestions/feedback/suggestions:
