Intel Network Builders

Transcription

1 Intel Network Builders Nakina Systems Solution Brief Intel Xeon Processors Intel Network Builders Nakina Systems and Intel Make NFV Network Operational Introduction Every great generation of computing has been made possible by a great operating system - from the PC with Windows to the mobile device with ios. Without an operating system, applications would not exist or operate. Operating systems take care of vital behind-the-scenes tasks that keep allow applications and hardware to work in harmony. Network functions virtualization (NFV) is no different in that it needs an operating system to be reliable, scalable and secure. The application equivalents for NFV are the management and orchestration (MANO) systems orchestrators and OSS. But what is the OS equivalent? What takes care of ensuring that MANO systems can communicate with networks, that data integrity is maintained so that automation can be enabled, and that the entire environment is secure? MANO requires MANO enablement solutions. Nakina Software has joined the Intel Network Builders ecosystem to work more closely with Intel and other ecosystem partners to advance NFV as the next great computing platform via Nakina s robust and open MANO enablement platform.

2 Challenge Next-generation telecom services will be composed of both virtual network functions (VNFs) and physical network functions (PNFs). The legacy network elements as well will play a key role these services and must be integrated alongside NFV elements into the service provisioning and deployment process. Service orchestration software, which arranges, coordinates and manages services spanning both virtual and physical networks, is emerging as a way to automate the set up and tear down of virtual network functions and corresponding network It s necessary that orchestration seamlessly extend between VNF, PNF and legacy networks in order to offer end-to-end While orchestration will hide all of the complexity of interaction between the NFVI, VNFs and the physical network, it doesn t provide lower-level management functionality that is essential for operational integrity such as inventory, security, settings/parameter management and other functions. MANO enablement is needed to provide the operational agility and integrity, to allow orchestration systems to communicate easily with diverse network functions, and to ensure that complex network topologies (such as VNFs running in remote mobile base stations or customer premise equipment), can be seamlessly managed, orchestrated, and secured. Solution Nakina s NI-FRAMEWORK is a comprehensive MANO enablement software platform providing a set of abstraction and mediation interfaces and capabilities. NI-FRAMEWORK is an open platform, enabling third-party application, orchestration systems, and OSS to leverage its massive scalability. All of Nakina s network integrity applications leverage the power of NI-FRAMEWORK. NI-FRAMEWORK and Nakina s associated network integrity applications aligns with the standards body work going on in the European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI) to define MANO. To date, ETSI has specified three functional blocks for MANO: Nakina provides a comprehensive solution to the critical VNF, PNF, and NFVI management needs within the ETSI reference model. In addition, the company s support for the widest range of APIs means that other functionality can be incorporated into the solution as needed by the operator. FIGURE 1: HOW NAKINA SYSTEMS DELIVERS ETSI-DEFINED MANO ENABLEMENT 2

3 Nakina Systems NI-FRAMEWORK Nakina s Network Integrity Framework (NI-FRAMEWORK) is the heart of the Nakina MANO enablement strategy. It provides mediation and abstraction between OSS, orchestration systems and physical and virtual network functions. This software layer delivers the abstraction and business rules necessary to build a model of the network including inventory, configuration management, and fault and provisioning everything needed for OSS, BSS, and orchestration systems to configure and deploy network 3 The mission-critical nature of NI- FRAMEWORK means it needs a highperformance server to deliver the scalability and performance needed for large service provider networks, Nakina recommends its software be run on Intel Xeon processor E5 v3 and Intel Atom processor C2000 series based servers. NI-FRAMEWORK is built using a modeldriven architecture that ensures it is open to network functions from all vendors and also facilitates the addition of new functions dynamically without integration. This hot-pluggable architecture gives operators the freedom to support all virtual network functions and dramatically reduces the time to implement new NI-FRAMEWORK supports a comprehensive set of APIs (including YANG, NETCONF, CLI, SNMP, REST, SOAP and Web Service) for mediation services to the OSS/BSS and orchestration software and also abstraction services to network functions. These APIs also facilitate both virtual network environments as well as legacy networking equipment, allowing the orchestration and support systems to span all network resources. NI-FRAMEWORK mediation capabilities are used to support added network integrity functions. With the API support, service providers can develop any number of these applications. In addition, Nakina offers several of its own orchestratable network integrity applications, which include: NI-CREATOR provides automated gold standard template creation. It compiles service and network models to create end-to-end service catalogues. Models can be created or imported; modeling languages include XML, TANG, and TOSCA. NI-CREATOR enables model driven network function adapter creation using NETCONF. NI-CONTROLLER automatically audits and analyzes all devices and parameters against an established gold standard design. Service parameters and settings are constantly being changed in dynamic NFV settings, which can cause

4 operational challenges. With NI- CONTROLLER any discrepancies are quickly identified and rectified to prevent service degradation. NI-COLLECTOR provides discovery and correction of inventory anomalies to accelerate service activation. The software discovers full physical and logical inventory from all managed devices, which is used to build NI-COLLECTOR can compare its discovered data with an offline inventory system and, if a discrepancy is found, can leverage business rules to take the appropriate action. NI-DIRECTOR delivers zero-touch service activation and network configuration management via its template-based service automation and element management capability. All configuration updates are routed through NI-DIRECTOR to reach the right network functions and equipment. NI-DIRECTOR is an essential for the growth and scalability of NFV networks. NI-GUARDIAN provides a unified access control and single sign-on across the entire management domain ensuring authorized users can access any VNF or network gear securely without the need for multiple log ins. With NI- GUARDIAN network solutions can scale securely. Service Providers Rely on Nakina Nakina s network integrity applications and NI-FRAMEWORK are globally deployed and trusted by some of the world s largest service providers. Service providers such as Time Warner Cable (TWC) are using Nakina in early-stage NFV implementations such as virtual customer premise equipment (vcpe) provisioning systems. The vcpe solution reduces install times for TWC s fiber-based Ethernet circuits. The company offers many Ethernet services (EPL, EVPL, EPLAN and more) delivered over CPE from multiple vendors with differing service level agreements. These factors resulted in a service deployment process that was manual and that involved coordination between both the engineering and operations groups. The result was a long CPE install and provisioning time with too many service configuration errors that required rework. The worked with Nakina to automate the service provisioning using its NI-DIRECTOR network integrity application, leveraging NI-FRAMEWORK to provide monitoring, discovery and inventory, orchestration and activation. With the new system, once the equipment installer installed the CPE and powered it up it would be detected, initiating an automated process to ensure all firmware and device defaults were updated and then install device updated device configurations and the specific service settings for that customer. The end result was that the company s key business need to reduce errors and deployment time was met and Time Warner Cable is now looking at several other processes that can benefit from its NI-FRAMEWORK investment. Conclusion MANO enablement provides critical behind-the-scenes support that support making NFV operational. Nakina s NI-FRAMEWORK, running on Intel Architecture servers, plays a key role in network service deployments. It helps extend MANO to virtual, physical and legacy networks for end-to-end service orchestration. Nakina s network integrity applications leverage this open software platform ensuring the network integrity, security, inventory and fault reporting functions required for carrier class NFV scalability. 4

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