Journey from on-prem to cloud orchestrated Service Provider networks

Most of the legacy on-prem communication service provider, mobile networks?are proliferated and working in silos to each other. General trend is that CSPs issue RFP requirements without indicating any roadmap or expectation from the incumbent/prospective vendor how to integrate the existing electronics, network appliances, application software, APIs, OSS/BSS platform etc.(most of the legacy on-prem equipment is proprietary/licensed/IPR protected).

International standards bodies, Forums?continue to deliberate on these complex issues, with no clear road map or mandate. For example, Silicon Valley based researchers are always experimenting with new protocols, and yet wonder how to address the compelling need to change the software in the on-prem network devices, appliances etc. each time they wanted to try a new approach. They came up with the idea of making the behavior of the network devices programmable, and allowing them to be controlled by a multi-tenancy cloud orchestrated central element(cloud of clouds).?This has led to the formalization of principal element that is called software defined networks or SD-WAN's of today:

? Separation of control and data forwarding functions(Example mobile tower elements like disaggregated cell site gateway,service provider edge routers for xhaul,packet-optical transport etc.)

? Centralization of control(cloud orchestration)

? Ability to program the behavior of the network using well-defined interfaces (APIs)

The next area of success for software defined networks was in cloud data centers. As the size and scope of these data centers expanded it became clear that a better way was needed to?connect and control the explosion of virtual machines,dockers,containers,kubernetes besides bare metal. The principles of software defined networks soon showed promise in improving how data centers could be controlled.

Open Flow – Driving towards standards

So, where does Open Flow come into the picture? As software defined networks started to gain more prominence it became clear that standardization was needed.?The Open Networking Forum (ONF)?was organized for the purpose of formalizing one approach for controllers talking to network elements, appliances etc. and that approach is?Open Flow.

Open Flow?defines both a model for how traffic is organized into work flows, and how these work flows can be controlled as needed. This was a big step forward in realizing the benefits of software defined networks(SDN). In addition to ONF, the?Open Daylight Project?also aims to advance open standards and SDN adoption.?Announced way back in Silicon Valley during 2012 by the Linux Foundation (RHELx86), the Open Daylight Project’s?goal is to offer a functional SDN platform that gives users directly deployed SDN without the need for other components. In addition to this, activist forum contributors- communication service providers, network equipment providers, independent software vendors’ etc. can deliver add-ons and other network elements that will add more value to?Open Daylight ongoing project deliverables.

NFV –Network Functions Virtualization

Whereas SDN was created by researchers and data center architects, NFV was created by a?consortium of communication service providers. Service providers attempted to speed up deployment of new network services in order to advance their revenue and growth plans, and they found that hardware-based appliances limited their ability to achieve these goals. They looked to standard IT virtualization technologies and found NFV helped accelerate service innovation and provisioning.

As mentioned earlier,?communication service provider networks are populated with a large and increasing variety of proprietary hardware appliances. To launch a new network service often requires yet another variety and finding the space and power to accommodate these boxes is becoming increasingly difficult; compounded by the increasing costs of energy, capex challenges and the rarity of skill-sets necessary to design, integrate and operate?increasingly complex hardware-based appliances. Moreover, hardware-based appliances rapidly reach end of life, end of support requiring much of the procure-design-integrate-deploy cycle to be repeated with little or no revenue (ROI) benefit or economic business value.

Network Functions Virtualization(NFV)?aims to address these problems by leveraging standard IT virtualization technology to consolidate many network equipment types onto industry standard high volume commodity compute servers, network switches and data storage, which could be located in data centers, network nodes(5G nodes,cell site gateways) and in the end user premises(home gateways, branched networks etc.). We believe Network Functions Virtualization is applicable to any data plane packet processing and control plane function in fixed and mobile network infrastructures.

SDN and NFV – Working Together?

Network Functions Virtualization goals can be achieved using non-SDN mechanisms, relying on the techniques currently in use in many data centers. But relying on the?separation of the control and data forwarding planes?as proposed by SDN can enhance scalability,resilliency,low latency,faster to deploy,network coverage and capacity performance, simplify compatibility with existing deployments, and facilitate operation and maintenance procedures.

Network Functions Virtualization is able to support SDN?by providing the infrastructure upon which the SDN software can run. Furthermore, Network Functions Virtualization aligns closely with the SDN objectives to use generic compute servers and network switches etc.

The combination of SDN and NFV provides an optimum solution:

? An expensive and dedicated network appliance is replaced by generic server and advanced application software.

? The software control plane is moved from an expensive on-prem location (in dedicated platform) to an optimized remote location (hosted by commodity RHELx86 server in a data center or points of presence-POP, edge network routers and switches etc.).

? The control of the data plane has been standardized, allowing for network and application evolution without the need for upgrades of hard coded network appliances etc.

Disclaimer-?The views expressed by the author is based on his professional management and sales consulting experience, globally recognized thought leadership, grounds-up stealth mode tech startups,witnessed 4x exits of VC funded mid stage, pre-IPO tech companies, based in San Francisco Bay Area, East Coast New York City region as well as promoter driven Indian SMEs with advisory focus on service providers,mobile network operators,enterprise,federal govt.,,department of defense and homeland security,railways,gas and power utilities,fin-tech and banking ecosystem.