Lifecycle Service Manager NetACE White Paper www.atrinet.com
SDN Migration and Deployment Challenges SDN holds great promise in terms of simplifying network deployment and operation along with lowering the total cost of managing enterprise and carrier networks by providing programmable network services. However, a number of challenges remain to be addressed: Preserving the effectiveness of network operations during the transition state It would be straightforward to deploy a completely new infrastructure based on SDN technology. For this, all elements and devices in the network would be SDNenabled. However, there exists an installed-base of networks today that cannot be replaced in one day or in the near future. The transition to SDN requires simultaneous support of SDN and traditional equipment. Further development and complicated integration is required to achieve a hybrid SDN infrastructure in which traditional, SDN-enabled and hybrid network nodes can operate in harmony and being managed and automated at the same time. Such approach would reduce the cost, risk and disruption for enterprise and carrier networks transitioning to SDN as well as enable new revenue generation and SDN-like programmability during the transition state, which is an extremely painful process for the operator in terms of operational efficiency and expenses. Applications compatibility issues An SDN Controller communicates with SDN Applications, these applications are written to a set of APIs that are provided by the SDN controller. Generally, APIs are not standardized, so an SDN Application that runs on a given SDN controller may have to be modified to run on another SDN controller. A Mediation Layer for connecting network Applications to re-configurable Network Nodes / SDN controllers is required. Missing Skills SDN requires bringing together advanced networking and programming skills, which is not a common thing among IT professionals, especially in an environment where the staff is constantly replaced by new ones. Conclusion SDN offers many advantages to network design including programmability, agility and NFV. However, in most cases SDN is not being deployed in greenfield networks. To ensure the smooth and cost-effective transition to SDN (and afterwards) without disrupting daily network operations and revenue streams, an operator requires a set of SW tools like those described in this paper to streamline the management of a complex multi-vendor network built of different generations of telecommunication equipment and to deliver open and unified programmable interfaces to allow the orchestration of applications and automation of network functions. NetACE SDN Lifecycle Service Manager 2
NetACE Value NetACE is designed to transform enterprise and carrier networks by unifying traditional network management and open, SDN-style network orchestration and programmability to enable Lifecycle Service automation and flexibility, being a missing link in the transformation from Legacy to Next Generation networks. NetACE shortens service delivery times and reduces operational expenses by simplifying and automating service design, service activation, network-aware resource allocation and routine network maintenance tasks across multi-vendor, multi-service networks of different generations. NetACE provides control, e2e visibility and real-time assurance over the customer s network and services through a single pane-of-glass management. Lifecycle Service Management (design, configure, activate, discover, control, assure) Network-aware and policy-driven mapping of services to network resources Vendor-agnostic L2-L4 service activation (via NetACE GUI or hands-free through REST APIs) Traditional and Next Generation Networks automation and programmability Open and Simple Model-driven Service Design (no programming skills required) Vendor Device Independence (add a new vendor in 15 minutes via GUI) Real-time Troubleshooting NetACE SDN Lifecycle Service Manager 3
Why automating Service Lifecycle Management is so important? Implication of lack of network-wide programmability and automation in terms of OpEx NetACE focuses on the following: 1. Automating the most expensive and time-consuming tasks such as design, configuration and activation 2. Automatic resource allocation based on user constrains and network availability 3. Real-time monitoring and managing all customer s services API NetACE Receive Order Process Order Decline Order Design Service Create configuration Activate Service Monitor & Manage 18% 37% 31% 14% % Cost NetACE SDN Lifecycle Service Manager 4
Why NetACE Challenge: To deliver a cost effective, Lifecycle Service Management solution that can enable the design and operational agility, rapid vendor-agnostic service deployment, holistic and real-time view and seamless automation of traditional and next generation networks. Ensure a successful migration to SDN Deliver the benefits of SDN to Traditional Networks Generate new revenue from new agile services Drive down operational expenses by 30-40% Enable design agility Achieve rapid time-to-market Totally eliminate the risk of vendor lock-in Significantly reduced mean time to recovery (MTTR)
A unique SDN approach of NetACE NetACE is truly an open platform unifying traditional network management and open, SDN-style network programmability and Lifecycle Service Orchestration while eliminating management silos. This in turn enables service definition and provisioning automation that shortens time-to-market, delivers complete vendor independency and dramatically improves cost structure. The following figure clearly demonstrates NetACE's high-level functionality and the necessity for the innovation it delivers OSS/BSS Web-portals 3 rd Party Apps NetACE GUI New Service Type Order Existing Gaps Delays in Service Activation Lack of Automation Open Service Architecture Model-driven Vendor agnostic provisioning Hands-free provisioning Network wide transactions Real-Time Service Discovery Database REST Mapping STEP 1 Reuse / Update / Create Network Entities STEP 2 Create new Service Model (Automap Entities) Costly Software Overhead Adapter-free configuration Self-customizable Vendor agnostic Topology & Inventory & FCAPS SNMP NETCONF Configuration Activation Engine CLI STEP 3 Provision the new Service Error-Prone Operations Built-in Resource management Rollbacks Validation Monitor Configuration change Juniper Cisco Alcatel Huawei Large Multi-Vendor Multi-Service Network Getting Started at a glance Define as many network equipment vendors and device types as you desire into the system via the GUIbased Device Type Manager (a process that takes less than 15 minutes). Automatically discover your multi-vendor network by an IP address range (both devices and links) realizing full FCAPS functionality. Rapidly create any L2-L4 service models (or approach us to create those for you) via the ing Tool (an open web-based, graphical interface; no programming skills required) Mass-provision the custom-designed customer s services in a point-and-click manner via NetACE GUI or via 3rd party OSS/BSS portals. NetACE SDN Lifecycle Service Manager 6
Automating Service Lifecycle Management with NetACE NetACE provides a real-time, less expensive and the most practical way to program a multi-generation network and the entire Service Lifecycle, delivering true vendor-agnostic multi-service solutions that control today's and tomorrow's networks through a single pane-of-glass. Design Service Entities CLI-based Data Model «Policer» «QoS» ing Service Activation Service Management Step 1 Step 2 Step 3 Step 4 Create Service Model Drag & Drop the relevant Network Entities Activate the Service Via NetACE GUI or OSS/BSS Portals (via REST APIs) (auto-rollback if failed) Real-Time Discovery Health Monitoring Modification Deletion «Firewall» «VPN Site» 7 Web-based ing Tool Model any type of service: E-line, E-Lan (VPLS), E-Tree, L2VPNs, L3VPNs Provision the service across multiple networks/vendors as a simple atomic transaction: Cisco, Juniper, Alcatel, Huawei, ZTE, Ciena Manage, control and real-time monitor all customer s services NetACE SDN Lifecycle Service Manager 7
Tier 1 scalability: 60K NEs and 250K Services Linux and VMware Virtualization Modular and Distributed system Architecture Component Redundancy with Load Sharing Available Today Roadmap 3 rd Party SW NetACE Open Architecture NetACE GUI OSS/BSS Portals Orchestration Software CRM & Bulling NetACE Java CORBA XML REST Entity-based s Service Manager YANG-based s Service Discovery Engine Centralized DB FCAPS & Topology Device MIB Object Rules Device Manager YANG-Based Device Models Distributed, Redundant Backend Servers BES BES BES Vendor-agnostic CLI Adapter SNMP NETCONF OpenFLow Controllers REST Network Service Legacy NGN NMS/EMS Large Multi-vendor Networks: Hardware, Virtual, OpenFlow Model-Driven NetACE's unique Open Model-driven Service Design Architecture easily enables the design of the most complex services by the service provider (in-house) in a matter of hours, and run-time introduction of these completely new services to the Service Catalog. Atrinet has developed a simple and intuitive process of designing new services in NetACE using the web-based Service Modeling Tool without the necessity for any programming skills and system upgrades. Programmable Networks that allow business customers and/or their applications to order, add, change and flex connectivity services on demand are variously called "programmable networks," "user-defined networks" or "network as a service" (NaaS), but the principle is the same. They allow customers, through a portal, to logically define where they want connectivity services, their type and bandwidth. NetACE receives the service creation request and user parameters through its programmatic interfaces and automatically provisions the service, taking minutes to deploy what would once have taken a team of network engineers perhaps weeks to roll out.. NetACE SDN Lifecycle Service Manager 8
NetACE Applications NetACE Web-based ing Tool and Service Catalog Manager NetACE's Open Model-driven Service Design Architecture enables the design of the most complex service types and run-time introduction of these completely new services to the Service Catalog in a matter of hours. Atrinet has developed a simple and intuitive process of designing a new service in NetACE using the webbased ing Tool and Service Catalog Manager that operates in a "drag-&-drop" manner. This web-based tool facilitates the addition of new service models that are automatically saved to the Service Catalog as well as modification of existing ones. Users model a service based on their knowledge of the network and the service type they wish to implement, sometimes even relying on pre-existing Network Entities that contain the set of CLI commands currently used to deploy a service. A service model can be defined using either the rapid point-and-click Service Creation GUI or a scripting language or a mixture of both. This flexibility allows the design of a variety of models ranging from the simple service model containing a set of commands and parameters to the complicated ones which can include command conditionals, sophisticated network logic and parameters requiring validation by built-in, user-defined Resource Managers. NetACE SDN Lifecycle Service Manager 9
NetACE Multi-vendor Topology Discovery Engine (and GUI) Provides an accurate view of your network by automatically discovering and tracking changes to your network s equipment. NetACE s automated discovery process completely eliminates preparatory manual data entry. Adding a new Vendor in 15 minutes (via GUI) Adding a new and previously unknown device vendor to an NMS is usually a very expensive and time-consuming process which requires vendor intervention and extensive development effort. The device may have non-standard MIBs that need to be mapped to the device properties, and therefore the relevant changes must be inserted in several places in the source code (e.g. OIDs must be hardcoded to show module information). These code changes inevitably mean the release of a new software version. With NetACE's new Custom Device feature, adding a new device type is speedily done within 15 minutes and never requires code modification. As part of the process, every new device type configuration is automatically stored into NetACE's database including all its OIDs as configured by the operator. Modification of the mapping between the device's MIBs and of the full set of properties controlled by NetACE is simply achieved via GUI-based Device Type Manager and in effect allows any device vendor to be automatically discovered, have a full set of managed properties, FCAPS and automated Service Lifecycle capabilities. NetACE SDN Lifecycle Service Manager 10
NetACE SDN Lifecycle Service Management Suite Leveraging NetACE's Lifecycle Service Management capabilities and Open Model-drive Service Design Architecture, moving away from hard-coded, rigid service structures to re-usable and easy editable service models, will make the service provider s operational environment much more agile and achieve accelerated time-to-market for introducing new services quickly into their portfolio. Operators will significantly improve their responsiveness to business demands through a simple and network-aware service design approach (no programming skills required), rapid cross-silo service deployment and, at the same time, reduce overheads associated with the network operations. Rapidly design, configure, activate, plan and allocate resources, discover, assure, control all types of customdesigned services over a complex multi-vendor network. 15 minutes To model a new device type Control Design Configure 2 hours To model a new service Assure NetACE Service Lifecycle Activate 1 minute To activate a new service Discover Allocate resources NetACE SDN Lifecycle Service Manager 11
NetACE Real-Time Service Discovery Engine Discovery and reconciliation of services and network resources are key components of Lifecycle Service Management, efficient network utilization and stability. NetACE enables operators to discover and manage not only all cross-silo services created via NetACE but also has a unique technique to discover externally created brownfield services. NetACE Zero-touch Service Provisioning and Planning NetACE eliminates the complexity of circuit provisioning though zero-touch automated service activation for L2-L4 services. It enables pre-provisioning of services prior to deployment of physical network elements, automatic resource allocation and ensures that the configuration parameters necessary for service delivery are correctly applied. NetACE RESTful APIs NetACE provides robust northbound RESTful APIs for automated network provisioning, customer management, billing, payment and ordering functionality, and integrates with the latest web technologies and OSS/BSS systems. NetACE User-defined Resource Management and Automated Resource Allocation NetACE, with its user-defined, network-aware Resource Management and Automated Resource Allocation system, reduces the need for administrators to be constantly engaged in endlessly repetitive routine work, allowing them to focus on the broader, higher-level tasks of managing their infrastructure. Sophisticated and custom-defined resource management and automated resource allocation system helps to avoid human errors while maintaining multiple customer datasheets outside the system and attempting to set the correct parameter during provisioning. It replaces the manual, error-prone and timeconsuming resource lookup procedures with a smart and fully automated resource allocation process which is custom-defined and managed inside the NetACE s database. NetACE SDN Lifecycle Service Manager 12
NetACE Centralized Device Configuration Manager and Task Scheduler Automatically backs up, restores, upgrades, and loads SW, etc. on all NEs across the entire network, regardless of vendor, using a consistent process and a single user interface. Simply design and allocate custom network tasks including target backup servers, backup frequency, and scheduling. NetACE Fault Manager Minimizes network downtime and improves mean-time-to-repair by centralizing all alarms and traps of your multivendor network into a single unified view reducing potential risks and expenses through reduction of SLA violations. NetACE Security Manager and Event Logger Provides a centralized authentication and role-based access-control point into your system to improve security and reduce user administration costs while enabling group permission management to control who can access what and when and captures all user activities in real-time to facilitate security and tracking. NetACE SDN Lifecycle Service Manager 13
While others powering the networks of tomorrow, we power the networks of today About Atrinet Atrinet is a leading provider of multi-vendor Lifecycle Service Management solutions to telecommunication service providers, enterprise customers and equipment vendors. Atrinet introduces programmability and automated service delivery and operational agility to traditional and next generation networks, leveraging the power of SDN to reduce the cost and complexity. Backed by Nokia Solutions & Networks, Atrinet provides cost-efficient Network Management Solutions & Services to over 40 equipment vendors and telecommunication service providers worldwide. Partial list of our Customers Federal Protective Service (Russia) Contact Us Phone: +972-77-8066900 Email: info@atrinet.com www.atrinet.com NetACE trademarks are all trademarks or registered trademarks of Atrinet Ltd. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners. All rights reserved. Copyright 2015. 14