Agenda

● Telco and 5G● Network Functions Virtualization● OPNFV and Software Defined Everything with SUSE● Realizing NFVI requirements● Performance● Demo

Telco and 5G

LTE Network Architecture

Telco functions ● The infrastructure uses several specialized hardware equipment to realize network functions

● Radio Access Functions● EnodeB

● Core Functions (Evolved Packet Core – EPC)● MME - Mobility Management Entity● SGW/PGW - Service/Packet Gateways● IMS – IP Multimedia Service

● Edge functions● Customer Premises Equipment – CPE

● Eg: Residential Gateway for Internet and VoIP and Set Top Box for Media

A feel for the Telco hardware EPC CPE SGW

EnodeB OutdoorEnodeB

What are the problems ?

● Expensive

● Built to specifications

● Built by specific vendors

● Non-scalable

● Hard to maintain

● Difficult fault recovery

What does the specialized hardware do ?

● Legacy

● Specialized functions

● Reliability

● Consistently High Performance

● Security

The world of 5G

What is 5G ?As defined by ETSI: 5G is an end-to end ecosystem to enable a fully mobile and connected society. It empowers value creation towards customers and partners through existing and emerging use-cases delivered with consistent experience and enabled by sustainable business models.

● The realization of 5G is enabled by the following 4 components:

➢ NFV – Network Functions Virtualization

➢ MEC – Multi-access Edge Computing

➢ MWT – Millimeter Wave Transmission

➢ NGP – Next Generation Protocols

Network Functions Virtualization

What is NFV ?

● NFV reads as Network Functions Virtualization.

● VNF (Virtualized Network Function) - The software component that virtualizes a network function.● EPC becomes vEPC

● NFVI (NFV Infrastructure) – An Infrastructure that allows us to effectively play around with the VNFs.

What can we Virtualize ? ● IP Functions:

● Network Security and Firewalls● NAT● DNS● Caching● Intrusion Detection

● Telco Functions :● Service and Packet Gateways● Customer Premise Equipments (vRGW, vSTB)● Evolved Packet Core (vEPC)● IP Multimedia Service (IMS)● Mobility Management Entity (MME)● C-RAN – EnodeB Functions

High level NFV Framework

OPNFV and Software Defined Everything

OPNFV Architecture

SUSE - Software Defined Infrastructure

Application Delivery

Custom Micro Service ApplicationsKubernetes / Magnum

Platform as a ServiceCloud Foundry

Some of the important OPNFV Projects ● FuncTest – Functionality Tests● Yardstick – Infrastructure compliance● DPACC – Data Plane Acceleration● SFC – Service Function Chaining● Doctor – Fault Management● IPV6 ● Releng – Release Engineering● Pharos and XCI – Test Lab and CI

Realizing NFVI Requirements

NFVI Requirements

● Virtualized resources – KVM, Containers● A tool to manage virtualized resources – OpenStack, Kubernetes● Scalability● Availability and Security● Simplified Service Delivery● Reliable High Performance

Virtualization - OpenStack

● Designed to scale horizontally● Fully open source● Integrates with third-party software and hardware components● Well-defined APIs to integrate with other NFVI Components● Several NFVI features integrated in core projects (e.g: Nova, Neutron, Keystone)● In production environments● Tested explicitly in OPNFV regularly for functionality and performance

SUSE OpenStack and SLES

Virtualized resources KVM Virtual Machines

A tool to manage virtualized resources

OpenStack

Scalability Already in production

Availability and Security Live Patching

Simple Service Delivery Through AAS and Containers

Reliable High Performance Real Time services and tuning

Kubernetes – Why we need it Container orchestration at scale Why Kubernetes

● Containers

● Microservice

● Cloud Native

Kubernetes – What it providesContainer orchestration at scale

● Service discovery and load balancing

● Automatic binpacking

● Self healing

● Automated rollouts and rollbacks

● Horizontal scaling

Kubernetes – Check NFVI requirements Container orchestration at scale Virtualized resources – KVM, Containers

Yes

A tool to manage virtualized resources

Yes

Reliable High Performance YesScalability YesAvailability and Security Yes and limitedSimplified Service Delivery Yes

Performance

Reliable, Secure and Consistent Performance

There are really just two things that needs to perform well reliably to achieve this:

● Computing

● Networking

Computing FeaturesIf you are running everything on common hardware, it all depends on the Operating System

● Real Time Computing – your packet never waits for its time

● Huge Memory Pages – all the data you need in your neighborhood

● vCPU Pinning – do not share your processing power with others

● NUMA Affinity – processing where the data lies

● Live Patching – enhance your security without reboot

Networking FeaturesIf you are running everything on common hardware, it all depends on the Operating System ● Software Switch● PCI Passthrough● SRIOV● OVS-DPDK

NIC

VM1 VM2

L2 Software SwitchVMM

Traditional Virtualized Networking

Device Passthrough

NIC1

VM1 VM2

L2 Software Switch

VMM

NIC1

SRIOV

NIC

VM1 VM2

L2 Software SwitchVMM

VF1 VF2

DPDK

NIC

VM1 VM2

Open vSWitch + DPDK

VMM vhost user

DPDK PMD

Demo

Demo Content

Moving forward towards NFVI

● A sample VNF application with SOC

● Updatability through live security update

● SLES real time kernel scheduling

● Performance tuning with CPU Pinning and NUMA Affinity

● Performance under stress tests

Links for more information

● https://www.etsi.org/technologies/nfv● https://wiki.opnfv.org/● https://cilium.io● https://www.dpdk.org/● https://fd.io/● https://www.onap.org/● https://osm.etsi.org/● https://www.suse.com/documentation

Sources for Images

● Fujitsu EPC, EnodeB

● https://www.fujitsu.com/global/documents/about/resources/publications/fstj/archives● Cisco CPE, Serving Gateways

● https://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/products/wireless/sgw-serving-gateway/index.html● 5G Applications

● https://www.etsi.org/technologies-clusters/technologies/5g

Questions ?