Gearing up support systems for software defined and virtualized networks

The communications technology journal since 1924 2015 5 Gearing up support systems for software defined and virtualized networks June 5, 2015

The agile network 2 Gearing up support systems for software defined and virtualized networks The business environment of operators and service providers is going through a fundamental transformation. By 2020, more than half 1 of the envisioned 50 billion devices will already be connected. And while the ever-expanding use of connectivity presents a major growth opportunity, it also creates new and tougher demands on networks and particularly on the processes for managing users and devices. CARLOS BRAVO, FRANCESCO CARUSO, CHRISTIAN OLROG, MALGORZATA SVENSSON, AND ANDRÁS VALKÓ Parallel to the connectivity revolution, the digital economy has triggered a transformation in the way services are produced and consumed. Enabled by the global communication infrastructure, a new market of digital services is emerging. In this market, people and organizations can expose their digital assets, which can be rapidly combined with partner assets to create new, more useful, and more interesting services. Communication networks have a key responsibility: to provide the platform that enables the digital market to continue to develop. This responsibility presents operators and service providers with a unique opportunity. However, this opportunity is offset by the challenges of price pressure as well as the perceived commoditization of networks. So, to capture the digital market opportunity, both telecom networks and support systems need to gear up. Gearing up Business agility is one way to respond to the trends of digitalization and pressed profit margins. By being able to apply technologies that increase the level of flexibility in networks, operators and service providers can gear up from delivering network infrastructure to becoming providers of innovation platforms. To do this, valuable assets (like network infrastructure, the subscriber base, user identities, security credentials, location and mobility information, service and product s, charging and billing functions, connected device identities, and many more capabilities that can be used to create digital services) need to be leveraged in new ways. In the digital economy, only a few players will own all the assets that are needed to create attractive services. Typically, assets from different players will be combined dynamically in collaborative organizations. Operators will blend their capabilities together with partner assets to expose novel services. The result: innovation, mashed services, and highly satisfied users. The key to success in the digital market is the ability to adapt, and true business agility (illustrated in Figure 1) requires flexibility in all three dimensions: networks, services, and customers. Network agility Cloud, SDN and NFV are key elements of network agility: the capability to efficiently plan and build networks, adapt them to changing requirements, and provide superior service quality. agility The keys to achieving service agility are: the ability to create new services rapidly, to launch and deliver superiorquality services with ease, and to be able to monetize them. agility The keys to achieving customer agility are: the ability to interact with consumers in a way that is flexible and dynamic, the ability to expose new services, and the means to proactively resolve problems or react to issues rapidly. BOX A Terms and abbreviations API ETSI NF NFV NFVI application programming interface European Telecommunications Standards Institute network function Network Functions Virtualization Network Function Virtual Infrastructure operations support systems/business support systems PNF physical network function SDN SE SOA TTM vapp vdc VIM VNF software-defined networking service enablement service-oriented architecture time to market virtual appliance virtual data center Virtual Infrastructure Management Virtual Network Function Network agility Both SDN and NFV play key roles in gearing up to the level of network agility needed to explore the opportunities and address the challenges presented by the Networked Society and the digital economy. The concept of network virtualization providing physical network resources as virtualized entities has already been successfully applied to telecom networks. Examples of this type of network partitioning include VPNs

3 and VLANs. In 2012, a group of service providers launched the NFV initiative. Their aim was to apply best practices from the IT industry as it virtualized data centers and server rooms to the telecom domain. In other words, how can network elements be virtualized so that the maximum benefit from commodity-computing technologies can be achieved, while improving service agility and service efficiency at the same time? The short answer is NFV and SDN. FIGURE 1 Business agility agility /partner and interaction Idea-toimplementation Plan-toprovision Lead-toservice -tocash Experience-toresolution EASY NFV From a technical point of view, NFV promotes the decoupling of network functions (NFs) from hardware. By applying virtualization technologies, the software of network functions can be broken apart from hardware appliances. In turn, this separation unleashes massive flexibility in terms of how NFs can be dynamically deployed, elastically resized, and offered on an on-demand basis. Some of the potential benefits of this flexibility are reduced cost and lower power consumption, but gains can also be made in terms of increased speed and efficiency in the deployment of telecom networks. SDN SDN provides the ability to programmatically define and manage networks, which enables the complexity of underlying implementation to be abstracted from the applications that run on the network and consume resources. From a technical point of view, SDN enables separation of the data plane from the control plane. providers typically use SDN to take a holistic view of their networks, applying SDN concepts across network layers and domains, which in turn enables end-to-end programmabilty. SDN and NFV together Originally, the aim of combining NFV and SDN was to decouple services from resources, but when these two technologies come together, they provide the additional benefit of detaching life cycle from physical constraints. Today, it is possible to provision an SDN/NFV service instantaneously without the need to deploy new physical resources. This flexibility is the foundation of network agility. agility Network agility BOX B Virtual resource A virtual resource is an abstraction of a physical resource compute, storage, or network. Virtual resources can be shared among multiple consumers in such a way that they appear to be dedicated. WORK Data-to-experience REAL Network and cloud HAPPEN agility At Ericsson, are designed according to a functional decomposition of network architecture domains that natively account for SDN and NFV. Similar to network agility, SDN and NFV play key roles in gearing up the level of service agility. Figure 2 shows the and service enablement (SE) architecture for SDN/NFV-enabled networks. The diagram highlights the main functional blocks: and SE, network functions, equipment (representing the collection of physical resources), the cloud system infrastructure, and transport. Figure 2 architecture for SDN/NFV-enabled networks An NF can be supported by native (non-virtualized, physical NF) or by virtual (a virtualized application or a virtualized NF) resources. From a point of view, NFs are governed across two orthogonal planes: the network function domain plane illustrated as NF domain in Figure 2; and the supporting resources plane illustrated as vapp, in Figure 2. The NF domain- plane supports operational needs of NFs, such as PAY BETTER ACTIONABLE ACCESSIBLE fault, performance and ific configuration for NFs; while vapp handles resources required by a network function throughout its life cycle. The cloud-system-infrastructure function aggregates and manages virtual resources (see Box B) across different instances and technologies, offered by cloud system infrastructures (in ETSI terminology NFVI + VIM). Cloud deployments often span several different physical sites joined through a connectivity fabric, which may have a separate function. This fabric, illustrated by transport in Figure 2, can be orchestrated together with the resource infrastructure using SDN, effectively implementing a vdc (or a virtual resource slice) that provides a network service see Box C. The functions in the and SE plane are: experience and assurance offering service assurance; customer and partner interaction enabling both parties to interact with support systems through multiple communication channels; ; revenue providing

The agile network 4 FIGURE 2 architecture for SDN/NFV-enabled networks Experience assurance Nonvirtualized application partner interaction NF domain Order Virtualized application SDN-C Equipment Revenue the capabilities to charge and invoice for any type of product or service usage; resource providing a unified resource inventory for both virtual and physical resources; service inventory; customer/partner ; enterprise consisting of products, services and resources; and service enablement providing service exposure capabilities to partners for service innovation. Network function The and SE plane in SDN/NFVenabled networks provides capabilities to introduce new virtual NFs or vapps Resource inventory vapp System infrastructure partner Cloud SI SDN-C Cloud system infrastructure Enterprise progressively. In other words, new virtual NFs or vapps can be instantiated in a dedicated slice (see Box C) called trial. At the same time, an instance of the same NF can be executing in another slice called production. The redirection of users from the old to the new NF/ application can be carried out gradually, with minimum impact, and managed programmatically in a way that is transparent to users of the service. Rapid business innovation Support systems provide the necessary functions to encapsulate SDN/NFV services and combine them BOX C Virtual data centers (vdcs), slices and network services A vdc is an instance of a data center operated on a per-tenant basis, with flexible network topology and basic services compute, network, and storage as well as more complex ones such as firewalling and load balancing. A vdc may span multiple physical data centers or be constrained to a subset of the infrastructure within a single DC. A virtual resource slice, referred to as a slice, is an isolated view of the virtual resources a vdc in other words. A network service (NS) is composed of VNFs, PNFs, virtual links and VNF forwarding graphs that support the communication service. enablement domain SDN-C and SE with other assets into product offerings. These support systems also handle product life cycle, the capability to charge for products, and the process for exposing products to users and partners. However, one of the most significant challenges for operators and service providers today is time to market (TTM). One way to shorten the time from concept to delivery is to have a good understanding of business processes, so that the level of automation in processes can be raised. By having well-documented business processes, preconfigured solutions and suites can be delivered, which in turn enables additional business process innovation and increased speed when introducing new offerings, all while maintaining flexibility and the ability to integrate. As SDN and NFV facilitate new services, these technologies have greatest impact on the business processes that lie between the formation of an idea and its implementation such as planning, design and deployment. Figure 3 illustrates some of the activities included in the ideas-to-implementation process. It shows a possible scenario for creating a product offering from the services and resources managed by several functional domains. Within, the key al function of the idea-to-implementation process is the business creation environment, which is illustrated in Figure 3. Resource and service ifications as well as product offerings are created in this environment, which all result in a product entry. The idea-to-implementation process can be broken down into a number of ification phases: network function, resource, and service ification. Network function ification Domain uses the information provided in the NF ification to build the resources needed to construct the desired services. In some cases, this is a ready-to-use ification provided by the NF vendor. Resource ifications The virtual infrastructure resources needed by the NFs that the cloud system infrastructure will expose need to be ified. These resources are described

5 using vdc and vapp templates, and may be provided by the vendor. FIGURE 3 Idea to implementation ification Describes how transport service connectivity could also be exposed and bundled together with the target services defined by the market s needs into product offerings. These product offerings may be targeted to any segment, such as media providers or health care providers. The service ification includes characteristics that define ifics of the service in relation to requirements of the target segment. The -driven approach facilitates onboarding of new services, through simple modeling based on principles like modularity for defining services and reusability to construct richer and aggregated services and product offerings. It is one of the main pillars of the ideas-to-implementation process, complemented by ease of integration through standard interfaces and preintegration and automation of the endto-end processes. Resource Read service Access Read resource enablement. Define service Domain Network function Charging Add charging. Cloud SI domain Cloud system infrastructure Assurance Resource inventory Add assurance inventory segment Add customer segment Product offering Publish product offering Product Business creation environment IT Instantly available services Virtualization of network functions and the decoupling of software from hardware enable full automation of the leadto-service process (shown in Figure 4) across functional domains. Automating this process includes instantiation of the entire software stack of NFs that are encapsulated in a service, reducing time from to service activation, and improving resource utilization as resources become allocated shortly before use. -oriented architecture (SOA) and innovative micro-services provide programmable interfaces designed according to well-established industry standards and make major contributions to orchestration and automation. They are some of the key architecture principles, which together with a common information model expose services using APIs, enabling ease of integration as described in a previous Ericsson Review article 2. These key principles allow the instantiation of NFs and the resources needed. They facilitate the creation of product offerings from services and resources defined in different domains, transport, cloud system infrastructure, and IT. FIGURE 4 Lead to service Handle customer request Product Access Handle customer interaction. Network function Handle service enablement Activate resources Product Cloud SI domain Cloud system infrastructure Orchestration creation environment Domain Resource Domain Orchestration execution IT

The agile network 6 FIGURE 5 Providing new services with NFV like user identification, charging and network policies, and configuration information to program NFs. Health care provider Media provider Network functions RAN Instance 1 EPC-1 Instance 2 Media provider EPC-2 HSS-1 Instance 3 EPC-3 IMS-2 Any industry verticle Instance 4 IMS-3 HSS-2 EPC-4 HSS-3 HSS-4 New business opportunities The virtualization of NFs enables operators and service providers to develop new services for traditional segments, as well as providing the possibility to enter new markets. For example, virtualization enables bundles that include connectivity services to be mashed with value-add services and exposed in a one-stop-shop fashion, which can be created and offered to various industry verticals. Traditionally, a connectivity services offering for industry verticals tends provide network connectivity optimized for the ific vertical. In a virtualized environment, optimization is simplified, as NFs can be instantiated for a particular vertical, as illustrated in Figure 5. This illustration shows how NFs and support systems interact. NFs enable the connectivity to connect everything in the network together such as mobile phones and other handheld devices, as well as cars, and health care and transportation equipment. And the support systems manage the NFs and translate their capabilities into tangible services that can be offered to any industry vertical through operator and service provider capabilities. agility Similar to network and service agility, SDN and NFV play key roles in gearing up the level of customer agility. In the digital economy, the role of partnerships and ecosystems is more significant than traditional economies. Digitalized businesses collaborate more, and combine their assets together with partner assets to provide customers with the best services. In this environment, new ways that enable mashed offerings, service exposure, and blended services are needed. enablement, as shown in Figure 2, includes the functions needed to enable operators and service providers to monetize their assets and connect to others. exposure, one of the core functions within SE, provides access to network capabilities exposed by the service development environment through programmable interfaces. Exposure enables developers either at the operator, a partner or a 3PP to design and compose innovative services. Support systems provide the capabilities to manage partners and developers, to handle all communication channels, and to organize the administration of products and services. Technologies like SDN and OpenStack provide developers with programmable interfaces, which can be used together with capabilities so that new services can be deployed and executed in isolated virtual environments. In addition to exposing network programmability through OpenStack and OpenDaylight APIs, developers have access to other services and capabilities Operational simplicity and efficiency Software-defined networking usually refers to the unbundling or separation of the control plane and the forwarding plane of network elements. It can be solved in many ways, and OpenFlow is a commonly used protocol. Traditionally, functions have typically interacted with interfaces exposed by the control plane but with SDN, the separated forwarding plane becomes a managed entity in itself. The separation SDN provides results in fewer control planes; this in turn makes it easier to align the different types and versions of control planes and raises the bar for the least common denominator of functionality. Taken to the extreme, this concept results in a single SDN controller being sufficient, and so provides the benefits associated with reduced network complexity.

7 While SDN is not a prerequisite for efficient reconfiguration of network resources, it does provide a solid foundation for network agility. For example, separation has already led to improvements and new forwarding service paradigms like service chaining 3,4. Operational efficiency not just for the single service but the entire delivery operation is greatly enhanced by implementing an SDN fabric that supports dynamic, automated and modeldriven reconfiguration. Furthermore, when applications are added to the SDN controller dynamically, the possibility to perform dynamic protocol analytics increases, which in turn eases troubleshooting. In an NFV context, both SDN controllers and forwarding elements can be deployed as Virtual Network Functions (VNFs). Typically, hypervisors already include a software-defined forwarding function that is SDN capable, which can work in conjunction with physical forwarding elements. FIGURE 6 Software-defined networking Operator A SDN app Root SDN controller SDN app ific API SDN controller i/f Child SDN controller i/f Element i/f OSPF (for example) Router Settlement BGP (for example) Data plane Operator B Peer Peer routing domain i/f Innovation in SDN networks One of the primary reasons to shift to SDN is the potential increase in flexibility and agility. However, it does not necessarily follow that the introduction of a given technology automatically leads to improved agility and more streamlined operations. Typically, the adoption of a new technical model follows a hype curve adoption takes place once business value has been identified, and proper abstractions are in place to simplify the application of the technology. In a previous Ericsson Review article, the concept of Provider SDN 4 was coined. This concept takes a holistic view of SDN, extending it beyond the data center to include abstractions that enable services to be built that leverage all the functions of the entire network. Shifting to SDN/NFV By nature, SDN and NFV are disruptive technologies, and as such, tend to foster rapid innovation. They bring about changes that fundamentally alter the traditional way networks have been managed and developed. As enablers of automation, NFV and SDN make full use of one of the key architectural principles a -driven approach based on a Forwarding element unified model promoting reuse, automation, speed and correctness. The concepts of the virtual data center (vdc) and the virtual resource slice enable services to be deployed in parallel, and in controlled isolation. This type of parallel deployment adds flexibility because it, for example, enables operators and service providers to run different versions of multi-tenant appliances, which can be dimensioned on demand, and enables services to be personalized. The ability to improve speed and correctness is a key ingredient of innovation. By containing risk and ensuring failures are detected early (failing fast), operators and service providers can test more concepts, and do this not just for services and applications, but also for different market segments. The concept of time to market is changing. Traditionally, TTM was about getting a version of a service into the hands of paying customers as quickly as possible. Today, TTM is about how quickly the changing needs of modern consumers can be detected, and how quickly they can be reacted to. The OSS and BSS naturally play a key role in enabling the operation of this new paradigm. Automating the different flows required, from the idea of the new service to the implementation and operation of it, ensures operators and service providers are in full control of their network and services, and are empowered to act on insights and how they are used. The concepts of SDN, NFV and the virtual data center, as well as rapid adaption to changing consumer needs, form the pillars upon which network, service and customer agility are built.

To bring you the best of Ericsson s research world, our employees have been writing articles for Ericsson Review our communications technology journal since 1924. Today, Ericsson Review articles have a two- to five-year pertive, and our objective is to provide you with up-to-date insights on how things are shaping up for the Networked Society. Address : Ericsson SE-164 83 Stockholm, Sweden Phone: +46 8 7190000 Publishing: Additional Ericsson Review material and articles are published on: www.ericsson.com/review. Use the RSS feed to stay informed of the latest updates. Ericsson Technology Insights: All Ericsson Review articles are available on the Ericsson Technology Insights app available for Android and ios devices. The link for your device is on the Ericsson Review website:www. ericsson.com/review. If you are viewing this digitally, you can: download from Google Play or download from the App Store Publisher: Ulf Ewaldsson Editorial board: Joakim Cerwall, Stefan Dahlfort, Åsa Degermark, Deirdre P. Doyle, Björn Ekelund, Dan Fahrman, Anita Frisell, Javier Garcia Visiedo, Jonas Högberg, Geoff Hollingworth,Patrick Jestin, Cenk Kirbas, Sara Kullman, Börje Lundwall, Hans Mickelsson, Ulf Olsson, Patrik Regårdh, Patrik Roséen, Gunnar Thrysin, and Tonny Uhlin. Editor: Deirdre P. Doyle deirdre.doyle@jgcommunication.se Subeditors: Ian Nicholson, and Birgitte van den Muyzenberg Art director and layout: Carola Pilarz Illustrations: Claes-Göran Andersson ISSN: 0014-0171 Volume: 92, 2015 Carlos Bravo is portfolio sales support director and principal architect in cloud and SDN at Business Unit Support Solutions at Ericsson. He has over 15 years experience with operation and maintenance systems and processes and systems integration. He joined Ericsson in 2000 and has worked in all stages of product life cycle in Ericsson, from design to delivery and execution. He holds an M.Sc. in telematics engineering from the Higher Technical School of Engineering (ETSI), Seville, Spain. Christian Olrog is an expert in cloud service delivery architecture and chief architect at Business Unit Support Solutions at Ericsson. He joined the department of New and Special Business Operations at Ericsson in 1999 and has been involved in research and development in areas ranging from wireless LAN standardization and IP security to embedded devices and enterprise applications. He holds an M.Sc. in physics from KTH Royal Institute of Technology, Stockholm, Sweden. References 1. Ericsson, June 2015, Mobility Report, available at: http://www.ericsson.com/ mobility-report 2. Ericsson, 2014, Ericsson Review, Architecture evolution for automation and network programmability, available at: http://www.ericsson.com/news/141128- er-architecture-evolution_244099435_c 3. ETSI, 2014, Group Specification, Network Functions Virtualisation (NFV); Architectural Framework, available at: http://www.etsi.org/deliver/etsi_gs/ NFV/001_099/002/01.02.01_60/gs_ NFV002v010201p.pdf 4. Ericsson, 2014, Ericsson Review, Software-defined networking: the service provider pertive, available at: http://www.ericsson.com/ news/130221-software-definednetworking-the-service-providerpertive_244129229_c Francesco Caruso is an expert in cloud architecture and at Group Function Technology. He joined Ericsson in 2012 from Telcordia Technologies, where he was director of the Enterprise Integration Group. He championed the internal cloud program to transition OSS to the cloud environment and to extend OSS into the cloud- domain. He has more than 20 years expertise in the telecom OSS domain and holds an M.Sc. in computer science from the University of Pisa, Italy. Malgorzata Svensson is an expert and chief architect at Business Unit Support Solutions at Ericsson. She has over 15 years experience with operation and business support systems. She joined Ericsson in 1996 and has been involved in research and development in areas ranging from revenue, IMS, analytics, cloud and SDN. András Valkó is responsible for architecture and technology within Ericsson OSS Portolio and Solutions. He has nearly 20 years experience in the telecom industry, mostly within the area of network and OSS, with a focus on service assurance, analytics, performance, automation, and self-organizing networks. He holds a Ph.D. in computer science and has a technical research background. Before his current assignment, he was head of Experience Management and Analytics, and previously led the Ericsson Research unit for network and. Acknowledgements The authors gratefully acknowledge the colleagues who have contributed to this article: Lars Angelin, Henrik Basilier Jan Friman Ignacio Más, and John Quilty. Ericsson SE-164 83 Stockholm, Sweden Phone: + 46 10 719 0000 ISSN 0014-0171 284 23-3256 Uen Ericsson AB 2015