What is NFV? How does it relate to SDN, what does it mean for the telecommunications industry, and why should anyone outside of that industry care? Presentation delivered at CloudOpen Europe, Düsseldorf, October 2014

1. 1
Dave Neary
Open Source & Standards
Red Hat
dneary@redhat.com
NFV for Beginners

2. 2
What is NFV?
Wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Network_Functions_Virtualization
“NFV is a network architecture concept that
proposes using IT virtualization related
technologies to virtualize entire classes of
network node functions into building blocks that
may be connected, or chained, together to create
communication services”

3. 3
Hold on... what is NFV, again?

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ETSI architecture

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Lost in a sea of acronyms
NFV
MANO
VIM
VNFiEPC
IMS
SBC
ETSI NFV ISG
MMEvCPE
CDN
DPI
IPSec
SLA
CG-NAT
AAA
SGSN
PDN-GW
RNC
eNode B
QoE
BNG
VPN
HLR/HSS
OSS/BSS
BRAS
C-RAN
VNFs

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No, really... what is NFV?
Telcos are replacing hardware with VMs

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<interlude>

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Telco services
● Dial-up
● ISDN
● ADSL
● Cable
● Fibre Optic
● Broadband
● Satellite
● Voice
● Internet/data
● Live TV
● VOD
● Cellular voice
● SMS/MMS
● Cellular data
● Games
● ...

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Telcos provide more services today
than ever before

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Telco industry more competitive than ever
● Margins decreasing
● Maintenance costs increasing
● Customer demand for new services increasing

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Telcos care because:
● Increased agility – more services to market faster
● Reduced CapEx – replace expensive custom H/W
with industry standard servers
● Promise of reduced OpeEx

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</interlude>

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Revisiting definition of NFV
“NFV is a network architecture concept that
proposes using IT virtualization related
technologies to virtualize entire classes of
network node functions into building blocks that
may be connected, or chained, together to create
communication services”
Wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Network_Functions_Virtualization

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What is a network node function?

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“Middleboxes”
● Act on data going through the network
● Examples: Load balancer, gateway, IDS, VPN
endpoint, NAT, firewall
● Not just telco stuff

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Top use-cases
● IMS, EPC, SDB: Cellular, telephone, TV, video
streaming, VoIP, 3G/4G data
● CPE: Customer Premises Equipment – telco
equipment on-site (set-top boxes)
● Many others to choose from!

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Why now?
Open source
Cloud computing
SDN

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ETSI
● ETSI NFV ISG = European Telecommunications
Standards Institute NFV Industry Standards Group
● Defines use-cases, terminology and interfaces for
a hypothetical NFV platform
● NFV white paper and use-cases seeded both
OPNFV and OpenStack NFV team
http://www.etsi.org/technologies-clusters/technologies/nfv

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OPNFV
● Linux Foundation hosted project
● Goal is to create a complete software stack for
NFV
– Technology gaps – write code where needed for
NFV
– Upstream first – evangelise NFV to upstream
projects, ensure code is accepted
http://www.opnfv.org

26. Membership List
Platinum Members
Silver Members
Launched: Sept 30th
, 2014
10/11/14 OPNFV Introduction 26

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Upstream first
● Fill technology gaps – code talks
● Get that code upstream – Minimum Viable Delta
● Promote NFV use-cases in relevant upstream
projects

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OpenStack NFV team
● NFV needs high performance
● Requires getting information about, and utilizing,
underlying hardware and software
● “Pets vs Cattle” debate

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What's next?
● First OPNFV release Q1 2015
● Prioritising projects and use-cases
● OpenStack Kilo summit in Paris

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Questions?
Dave Neary
dneary@redhat.com

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Photo credits
Cover: Public domain, OpenClipart
Slides 2,3: ETSI NFV white paper
Slide 8: CC BY: Wikipedia article “Telephone switchboard”
Slide 9: http://www.telephonesuk.co.uk/
Slide 10: CC BY: Wikipedia article “Rotary dial”
Slide 11: CC BY: Wikipedia article “Mobile phone”
Hayes 1980s magazine ad
Slide 14: Ericsson EPC, HSS; Alcatel Lucent Mobile GW, IMS
Slide 26: Logos – trademarks of respective owners
Slide 27: CC BY-SA, OPNFV
Slide 28: Logos – trademarks of respective owners
Slide 32: CC BY-SA: opensourceway on Flickr