Thomas D. Nadeau

GMPLS operations and management: today's challenges and solutions for tomorrow

This article examines the technical challenges involved in the delivery of GMPLS, and in particular the challenges in managing these networks. This article focuses first on requirements gathered from customers who are deploying GMPLS in their networks, or will be doing so in the near future. The motivations for these requirements are often based on a service providers next-generation network designs that are motivated primarily by network convergence, and the promised operational and capital expense reductions and architectural simplifications over existing segregated network designs. This article then considers various solution options to manage GMPLS networks based on these requirements. The key areas examined include provisioning/configuration, performance monitoring and operations and management, and tools that can be used for these purposes. We conclude with a recap of standardization issues and opportunities.

Next-generation carrier ethernet transport technologies [guest editorial]

The five articles in this special issue focus on key carrier Ethernet transport topics in standards and architecture, techniques and options, and real-world deployment experiences. The articles are summarized here.

ETSI NFV ISG

In this chapter, we consider the contribution of the ETSI NFV ISG group’s work (with focus on the charter period ending in December 2014—which we will refer to as Phase 1—and an update on its later phase) as it pertains to Network Function Virtualization and the potential future of the ISG. The main focus of this work is decoupling service software from network hardware, creating flexible deployments and dynamic operations—the stated benefits of NFV in their architecture framework.

IETF Related Standards: NETMOD, NETCONF, SFC and SPRING

This chapter introduces the notion of other relevant and useful standards efforts going on in the industry. In particular, we focus here on the Internet Engineering Task Force’s efforts in this space, both failed and current. Here we define and describe what the NETMOD, NETCONF, SFC and SPRING working groups are up to and why it matters to NFV and SFC technology.

NFV Infrastructure—Hardware Evolution and Testing

In this chapter, we will look in detail at the architectural evolution in the Intel Architecture for NFV, including the increased dependence on cache efficiency for performance of NFV on CPU cores. We also look at the strategy of hardware augmentation that is opening the market for complimentary hardware acceleration through PCIE expansion. As with the software evolution in the preceding chapter, this leads to questions about our current architecture.

The Virtualization Layer—Performance, Packaging, and NFV

In this chapter, we will look at the evolution of virtualization techniques and software network I/O acceleration to satisfy these application requirements. We will also look at how the constant evolution in the compute component of the (ETSI-labeled) “NFVI” might affect the current aggregated, VM-centric NFV model, our concept of Service Function Chaining and the potential economic assumptions behind the NFV proposition.

MANO: Management, Orchestration, OSS, and Service Assurance

In this chapter, we discuss the orchestration of services and introduce elements that are now becoming more common in both current ETSI and open source solution dialogs. We also explore the practicality of moving to NFV en masse across an existing network, which will introduce a number of its own challenges.

The NFV Infrastructure Management

In this chapter we revisit the high-level architecture framework we described in Chapter 3, ETSI NFV ISG. We begin with a discussion of the NFV-I functional area as it relates to management and control of the virtualized compute, storage, and network components that together realize all virtualized functions on a given hardware platform—the VIM. We do this within the context of various open source projects such as OpenStack, and OpenDaylight. We introduce the concept of PaaS versus IaaS approaches to NFV and begin to ask questions about the ETSI architecture.

An NFV Future

Here we wrap things up with conclusions and opinions on the topics discussed. We consolidate the big questions around NFV from the earlier chapters and offer our opinions on a path forward.

Service Creation and Service Function Chaining

Here we nominate what goes into defining a service today and the need for change that is inspiring NFV. We discuss the components that are needed to define the salient components of a service, as well as discuss the pitfalls of some definitions. We discuss the concepts of service paths, and how services can be defined as composites of other subservices, as well as how these components can be chained together.