software defined networking and network functions virtualization

Software Defined Networking

and Network Functions Virtualization

The Next Big Thing in Networking

Dirk Kutscher, Fabian Schneider

NEC Laboratories Europe, NEC Europe Ltd.

[email protected]

Acknowledgement

this presentations is based on the work of

other reseachers at NLE, namely

Hans-Jörg Kolbe, Saverio Niccolini, Felipe Huici,

Jürgen Quittek, Heiner Stüttgen and many others

© NEC Europe Ltd. 2013

SDN

▌Allows programming the

network by separating control

and data planes

▌SDN is a whole

Eco-system:

SDN Apps

Network OS

Data paths

NFV

▌Consolidate plethora of divers

network elements onto COTS

servers, switches & storage

▌Complementary to SDN, but

not dependent

What are we talking about


Expectations of Telecom Operators

Source : https://www.opennetworking.org/images/stories/downloads/white-papers/wp-sdn-newnorm.pdf

Network Services

Network Device

Network Appliance + Centralize

Decouple

“Software”

Commodity HW →

CAPEX reduction,

Space, Power reduction

Automate control →

OPEX reduction

Open community →

New innovative

services by 3rd party

Standard interface →

Avoid Vendor Lock-in


HOW TO DO SDN?

→ WELL, … OPENFLOW


OpenFlow: Full Control over Flow Routing

Back to the roots: communication between endpoints create a flow

1. OpenFlow is based on an abstract switch model –

enabling the separation of control and data

2. OpenFlow deals with IP-flows, rather than IP packets

3. OpenFlow allows to control flow path routing end-to-end

4. OpenFlow allows to implement services inside the network

Firewall

Load balancer (3)

Server

Flow 1

Flow 2

Application 1

Application 2

Switch

Controller

Application 1

Application 2 (2) One sided flow

(1)

(1)

(2) Capable of maintenance

Apps Apps

Apps

Industry

Standard


HOW TO DO NFV?

→ WELL, … OPENSTACK

(& KVM, XEN, …) Page 9 © NEC Europe Ltd. 2013

OpenStack: Cloud Management can deal with VMs

© NEC Europe Ltd. 2013 Page 10

DPI

CDN

BRAS SGSN/

GGSN NFV Orchestration

CG NAT

PE Router WAN

Accelerator

Message

Router

SO, ARE WE DONE YET?

Page 11 © NEC Europe Ltd. 2013

Unfortunately NOT!

▌Good news for researchers, … still a lot to do

▌OpenFlow is only a part of SDN

Protocol has some restrictions / is bound to existing protocols

• Hard to introduce new networking paradigms (ICN, LISP, DTN, ...)

• No support for L5-7 matching (DPI, HTTP proxies, application LBs, ...)

Open app eco-system needs standardized north-bound interfaces

• Network OS needed, some efforts en route (OpenDaylight, ONF, ...)

• Requirements/Framework for SDN apps unexplored

▌NFV needs more than OpenStack

Data Plane Performance of virtualized NWEs

Orchestration, incl. Security and Privacy in virtualized NWs

Service Chaining


Framework/Execution Environment for SDN Apps


Southbound Interfaces

SDN controller instance 1

Northbound Interfaces

App 1 App 2

App 4 App 5 App 6

Sam

e E

xecution C

onte

xt

Migrate? Clone?

Communicate?

Communicate

with outside?

Communicate with

other components?

Southbound Interfaces

SDN controller instance 1

Northbound Interfaces

App 1 App 2

Sam

e E

xecution C

onte

xt

Locate/

Discover

Controller

New

contact

after

migrate?

Forward data

after migrate?

Local and/or

remote Apps Locate/

Discover

NBI type

How to orchestrate VM and network control


SDN

controller

Orchestration

network compute

/storage

VM

Mgmt

SDN

controller

Orchestration

network compute

/storage

VM Mgmt

Need to explore

pros and cons!

Complex Orchestration;

Lots of info exchanged

OpenStack Model

VM Mgmt cannot use

info from networking

SDN controller

Orchestration

network compute

/storage

VM

Mgmt

Interfaces do not yet

exist

Network service chaining

▌ Issues with service chaining:

Network-wide labels → NFs need to be label aware

→ Requires changes to the OS network stack of the NF

Input traffic ≠ output traffic @ network function (header rewriting)

→ How to identify traffic again on egress

One chain requiring multiple passes through same network element

→ How differentiate the different stages in the chain?

How to carry various info from beginning of chain to NF in the middle?

▌Many different use cases → way different requirements:

e.g. VNFs need access to arbitrary app/user meta data

Different from packet labeling

▌Needs a systematic approach: NEC looking into this

OF/SDN can help; NSC frameworks should leverage OF/SDN


SOME OF OUR LABS

RESEARCH ON SDN/NFV


SDN/NFV research in NLE

▌Enabling high-performance virtual network functions

FlashSwitch: Data plane performance of vSwiches

ClickOS: Framework for easy development of high performance VNFs

▌Moving NFs into the Cloud

vBRAS, vEPC, vCPE, vCGNAT

Mobile Cloud Networking (MCN EU project)

Reliability and Security (SECCRIT EU project)

▌SDN++

Network OS: Execution Framework for SDN applications

New limits in SDN: Flow table size and speed

ICN over SDN

▌Building network infrastructure for SDN (OFELIA EU project)


HGW

HGW

HGW

HGW

subscribers

core network (IP) aggregation network

DSLAM

DSLAM

Internet

EDGE

ROUTER

DC

services

IP PPP PPPoE Ethernet+VLAN

SDH/PDH (DSL)

IP Ethernet SDH, WDM, ….

BRAS

vBRAS Example: Broadband Access Network


Broadband Access Server Functions

PPPoE/PPP sessions management

Header encapsulation/decapsulation

Interface to AAA

Traffic shaping

Access control

ARP proxy

IP Forwarding

IP addresses assignment

IGMP processing


Expensive

Monolithic architecture

Single point of failure

Hard to change

First sessions’ tunnels

termination point

One ideal target for a NFV/SDN solution!


Broadband Access Server

COTS device/

blade server

Optimization of virtualization

NASS Module

(PPP)

Indiv. FW

& rate limit

VPN

Routing

Global

Firewall

Rate Limit per

Access Node

NASS Module

(PPP)

NASS Module

(PPP)

NASS Module

(PPP)

Indiv. FW

& rate limit

Indiv. FW

& rate limit

Indiv. FW

& rate limit

SW-defined

NW Functions

PPPoE

FW

Traffic

Shaper

…


Software BRAS

ClickOS-based BRAS VNF

▌ Implemented high performance PPP termination

▌With commodity IT technology …

Memory is not an issue; System can scale:

– Memory required for 1M sessions: 1.5 GB

– Memory required for 65k sessions: <100MB

Distributing sessions to multiple VMs in one server …

• leads to same results

Session setup rates are enormous

• Rate is >>1000 PPP sessions/s.

▌Throughput – snapshot “as of today”

10Gbps forwarding @ >512bytes/packet

• More than 2M packets per second

▌Conclusion: Virtualizing BRAS functions

is feasible while delivering required

performance


all measurements made on a

single PC, Intel i7, 3,2GHz, 6

cores, 4GB RAM

SUMMARY


Summary and Outlook

▌Virtualization is entering the network arena

SDN applies the „IT server cloud“ service paradigm to networking

Network virtualization can be applied to data and control plane

▌SDN holds the promise to reduce

NW Operator‘s and data center operator‘s CAPEX allowing the

use of commodity HW through NFV

• SW based NW (re-)configuration, including scale-in/scale-out for services

(e.g. virtualized mobile core vEPC, SW-BRAS,…)

NW Operator OPEX through a better support

• Flexible, on-demand in-network node processing to support NW control

• Provides SW controlled flexibility of the NW infrastructure to support dynamic

changes in networking requirements and demand

▌Although the SDN principle seems to be agreed by the industry

many research issues remain:

Data plane performance, Network OS, Security/Privacy,

Management/Orchestration, …


Some Related Links

▐ NEC SDN solutions

http://www.necam.com/SDN/

▐ NEC’s ProgrammableFlow Video

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4kno-X49QoM

… or search for “NEC OpenFlow” on YouTube

▐ OFELIA Testbed

http://www.fp7-ofelia.eu/

Check out the video and the Trema Tutorial there!

▐ NEC Labs Europe OpenFlow site

http://www.openflow.eu/

▐ NEC’s Open Source Controller Trema

http://trema.github.com/trema/

▐ ONF and ETSI NFV

https://www.opennetworking.org/

http://portal.etsi.org/portal/server.pt/community/NFV/367















https://www.opennetworking.org/



BACKUP


Open Source Activities

▌Controllers

ICSI NOX (C, Python)

Stanford Beacon (Java)

NEC trema (C, Ruby)

BigSwitch Floodlight (Java)

NTT Ryu (Python)

…

▌Software Switches

Open vSwitch (in Linux 3.3)

Indigo (abstraction layers to

support OF on

physical/hypervisor switches)

…


OpenFlow in OpenStack


OpenDaylight

Facilitate a community-led, industry-supported open source

framework, including code and architecture, to accelerate and

advance a common, robust SDN platform


http://www.bigswitch.com/

NEC RESEARCH AND NLE


NEC Laboratories Europe

(Heidelberg, Germany &

S.Ruislip, UK)

• Future Networks, SDN

• Security and Privacy

• Media Processing

• Cloud ICT

• M2M and IoT

• ITS

• Smart Energy

• Standardization

NEC Laboratories China

(Beijing, China)

• Video Surveillance

and Sensing

• Data Mining

• Cloud ICT

• Wireless

Access C&C Innovation Initiative

Knowledge Discovery Research Labs.

Cloud System Research Labs.

Information Media Processing Labs.

Smart Energy Research Labs.

Green Platform Research Labs.

(Tamagawa, Kanagawa)

• Knowledge Discovery

• ICT System

• Information and Media Processing

• Communication, Processing and

Sensor / Actuation Platforms

• Energy Management

• R&D Marketing


(Sagamihara, Kanagawa)

• Energy Component

C&C Innovation Initiative

Information and Media Processing Labs

(Ikoma,Nara)

• User Interface

• Information and

Media Processing

NEC’s Global R&D

Page 32 © NEC Europe Ltd. 2013 Page 32

NEC Laboratories America (Princeton, Silicon Valley, U.S.A.)

• Media Analytics, Machine Learning

• System Mgmt and Verification

• Energy Management

• IT System Architecture

• Broadband and Mobile Networking

• Quantum IT


Green Platform Research Labs.

(Tsukuba,Ibaraki)

• Energy Component

• Functional Material

• Low Power Device

NEC Laboratories Europe - Overview

▌~100 leading researchers from all over Europe and world-wide in

Heidelberg, and London (NEC E HQ)

▌Close links with leading European research institutes & universities

▌Collaboration with major industry in Europe, e.g.,

network operators, ICT vendors, automotive, utilities….

▌Research areas in NLE

4G/5G, Future Internet, SDN

Cloud platform, management & services

Security, Privacy & Performance

Internet of Things (M2M)

ITS and Green Telematics

Smart Energy

Standardization


NLE’s Mission

“Research & Development & Standardization & Marketing”

1. Develop key technologies and solutions for NEC’s business

Technology areas: network, security, M2M and media services, energy

and transport software technologies for the future cloud environment

addressing in particular European market trends and requirements

leveraging European strengths through open innovation projects with

customers and technology partners

2. Impact standardization to strengthen NEC’s solutions

Insert NEC technologies and (essential) IPR into evolving standards

Focus on 3GPP, IETF, BBF, IEEE 802, ONF, ETSI NFV, ...

3. Support European Sales and Marketing

Future technology demonstrators for European trade fairs

Provide consulting and trial support to customers and NEC E‘s CoCs

with technical expertise



NEC Group Vision 2017

To be a leading global company

leveraging the power of innovation

to realize an information society

friendly to humans and the earth

software defined networking and network functions virtualization

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