DEPLOYING TELCO-GRADE CLOUD SOLUTIONS AND NFV

Transcription

1 DEPLOYING TELCO-GRADE CLOUD SOLUTIONS AND NFV

2 White Paper 2 Deploying Telco-Grade Cloud Solutions and NFV Network Functions Virtualization: The Transformation of the Telco Network Abstract Representing the biggest potential transformation for telcos in two decades, Network Functions Virtualization (NFV) is bringing agility, flexibility, efficiency and cost savings to the networking world in the same way that virtualization and cloud technologies have transformed the enterprise server world. How can telcos maximize the benefits of NFV and what are the key requirements for a successful transformation? This paper considers the strategic challenge facing telcos, the need to move to a new network architecture, and the business benefits of NFV and Software-Defined Networks (SDN). It then goes on to outline the key elements of a successful network transformation, before exploring how telcos can maintain rock-solid network reliability in a highly virtualized environment. Network Functions Virtualization (NFV) is bringing agility, flexibility, efficiency and cost savings to the networking world in the same way that virtualization and cloud technologies transformed the enterprise server world. Telecoms Today: Rising Traffic, Flat Revenue After decades of growth, the global telecoms industry appears to be bumping up against a revenue ceiling. Telecoms services revenues fell by 1.2% in 2013 to $1.62 trillion and grew by less than 1% in 2014, according to estimates by research firm Gartner. At the same time, the traffic on telecoms networks continues to grow rapidly. Global IP traffic has increased more than fivefold in the past five years, and will increase threefold over the next five years, according to the Cisco Visual Networking Index, which forecasts that peak-hour Internet traffic will grow faster still, increasing by a factor of 3.4 between 2013 and For telcos, flat revenue typically translates into a static capital budget. Operators are, therefore, urgently seeking both cost savings and new revenue streams that will give them the financial leeway to accommodate the rising traffic on their networks. We need to provide 300%-400% times the capacity every three years, with the same capex spend each year, notes Krish Prabhu, CTO of AT&T and President of AT&T Labs. Google is making all the money, and we are making all the investments. We have no choice but to squeeze the vendors on one hand, and invent a new architecture on the other. 1 Telcos existing architecture is decades old. It is inefficient, typically running at less than 50% capacity in order to maintain standby redundancy to cover peak periods. It is also based on specialized hardware platforms, making it expensive to buy and maintain. As their finances come under increasing pressure, telcos are now seeking to overhaul this architecture and make their networks far more cost-effective. One of the biggest opportunities is to achieve far higher levels of utilization (80%+) by deploying virtualization technologies and dynamic resource pooling. In the telecoms industry, this emerging architecture is known as Network Functions Virtualization (NFV). 1 Mr. Prabhu made these remarks at the SDN & NFV USA conference in Dallas on October 6, 2014

3 White Paper 3 The Transformation of the Telco Network Network Functions Virtualization Historically, the telecoms industry has relied on monolithic vertical stacks of proprietary architectures. Telcos depended on a range of systems developed by individual vendors, such as Alcatel Lucent, Ericsson or Cisco. These included Short Message Service Centers (SMSCs), Home Location Registers (HLR), Mobile Switching Centers, GPRS Radio Systems, Backhaul Networks and Radio Access Networks (RAN). The telco was typically locked in to that vendor, which meant they would often pay a premium price for little flexibility and relatively slow innovation. If that vendor did not offer a particular network function (such as a high performance firewall or other security function), they may have provided another vendor s equipment, which would typically have a different operating environment and run on a different specialized platform. This increased costs, complexities and inefficiencies. It is not unusual for a tier 1 telco with thousands of central offices and tens of thousands of network functions to have hundreds of different types of network functions, each running on a dedicated hardware platform. The arrival of next generation IP-based networks is loosening these proprietary straitjackets, bringing more flexibility and increased efficiency. In the mobile sector, the ongoing deployment of 4G (LTE) is introducing layer-to-layer and function-to-function standardization. This delamination gives telcos more control and enables them to work with multiple vendors. Many operators are now moving from single vendor proprietary stack silos to best-of-breed deployments, where they can select the best RAN, the best evolved packet core, the best policy control enforcement function and so on. Although the delamination enabled by 4G is an important step forward, many of these functions are still running on individual proprietary hardware. The next step is to separate these functions from the hardware and run them as software on their own operating systems, orchestrated in a virtualized environment. This concept is known as decoupling. Representing the biggest potential transformation for telcos in two decades, NFV is set to have the same impact on the networking world as virtualization and cloud technologies have had on the enterprise server world: It will dramatically increase agility, efficiency and flexibility. The world s leading telcos have declared they plan to grasp this opportunity and quickly. In a December 2014 blog post 2, John Donovan, Senior Executive Vice President, AT&T Technology and Operations, wrote: We re planning to kick our transition to a software-centric network into high gear in In fact, I m putting a line in the sand today: our goal is to virtualize and control over 75 percent of our network using this new architecture by Other leading telcos are also set to run further NFV trials in 2015 before commencing commercial deployments in For telcos, NFV enables the replacement of inefficient and manual processes, which make use of inflexible and static resources, with a modern infrastructure that employs virtual, efficient and automated processes, underpinned by an agile dynamic pool of resources. In a virtualized environment, in which the software and hardware are no longer bound together, a telco can use commodity COTS (commercial off-the-shelf) systems to provide a liquid pool of dynamically allocated resources. This pool of resources can be allocated to any function at any time, enabling the telco to easily respond to spikes in demand for a particular system. In essence, virtualization enables the telco to dynamically allocate resources to wherever they are needed most, rather than having dedicated hardware for individual systems. In a LTE network, for example, a telco can virtualize the following systems and functions: Control plane systems such as the Home Subscriber Server, online and offline charging, mobility management, big data analytics and the IP Multimedia Subsystem (IMS) Network functions such as IP routers, firewalls and mobile network gateways, using a data plane (sometimes called the forwarding plane) which handles media packets and flows Operations support systems such as alarms and maintenance Business support systems such as billing and customer care 2

4 White Paper 4 Software Defined Networks Many telcos are deploying Software Defined Networks (SDN) in tandem with NFV. The SDN architectural framework abstracts the data plane switching infrastructure allowing the decoupling of the control plane and data plane functionality. This enables the control plane to be implemented as a centralized resource. In practice, a centralized control layer running on COTS servers can manage multiple data planes, providing both a global network view and automation. A SDN architecture also enables applications to request and manipulate services provided by the network and detect the network state, enabling agility, efficiency, rapid response and innovation. NFV and SDN: The Business Benefits For telcos, the combination of NFV and SDN can deliver a number of important operational and strategic benefits that will improve both financial and operational performance. Together, these benefits will deliver a step change in a telco s competitive position. Higher utilization that yields lower hardware costs Enterprises have benefited tremendously from virtualization. Virtualized IT systems have a much higher overall utilization: the peak to average ratio is lower, so less hardware is required. With virtualized systems, which are based on commodity hardware, enterprises also have a much greater choice of components and suppliers. Virtualization has led to enterprise savings of as much as 74% in the healthcare sector, 65% in insurance and 82% in transportation, according to VMware (see Figure 1). Similarly, NFV will dramatically increase the utilization of telcos network functions, significantly cutting both operating and capital costs. Faster time to market for new products and services By reducing telcos dependence on proprietary hardware, cloud automation increases agility. NFV makes it easier for telcos to deploy new technologies and innovations in their data centers, their core networks and their access networks, including software-defined network switches and controllers. In software-based networks, services can be set up and torn down much more rapidly than in a hardware-based environment. As well as enabling telcos to respond quickly to new market opportunities, SDN and NFV lower the risks associated with rolling out new propositions. The new architecture makes it easier to trial and evolve services to determine what best meets the needs of customers. Greater flexibility in customer/supplier business models NFV and SDN also give telcos greater flexibility. NFV can act as a platform for new cloud-based services, such as infrastructure-as-a-service or communications-as-a-service. They could, for example, offer video conferencing or unified communications, along with OSS/BSS, in a cloud infrastructure with fully automated orchestration. Figure 1: Virtualization cuts total cost of ownership

5 White Paper 5 NFV also enables telcos to develop big data and network analytics applications that can provide valuable insights into how people use their mobile devices and how to better improve their digital experiences. At the same time, open application programming interfaces (APIs) can give suppliers and other third parties greater visibility of the network and a certain level of control of network resources. Within this new architecture, it becomes straightforward for software companies, small players and academia to deploy network-based services, encouraging more innovation and potentially opening up new revenue streams for telcos and their partners. Proactive and automated network management In a SDN implementation, the centralized control system proactively monitors and manages the whole network using predefined policies. If it detects any abnormalities, such as security threats or network congestion, it can take corrective steps and reduce the impact on customers. Critical Components of a Successful NFV Transformation If telcos are going to harness the full potential of NFV and SDN and realize the associated business benefits, the telecoms ecosystem will need a new mindset. Both telcos and their equipment suppliers need to embrace the effective decoupling of hardware, software, and management from network functions. In an interview with Light Reading 3, Diego Lopez, head of technology exploration at Telefonica I+D, noted: The great improvements that NFV can bring to networks are flexibility and efficiency, and, in order to grant the success of this new network model, it is essential to avoid the consolidation of vertically integrated and/or proprietary monolithic solutions, where hardware, hypervisor, virtual infrastructure manager, and orchestrator would be required to come from the same vendor. This would lead to closed and non-interoperable environments, compromising the evolution of these technologies. To achieve the flexibility and efficiency promised by NFV, telcos need to implement an architecture that meets the following criteria: Delivers an open and interoperable multi-vendor ecosystem with open APIs and no vendor lock-in. Third party applications need to be able to request and manipulate services provided by the network and be able to detect the network state. Features a high level of virtualization to maximize the efficiency and elasticity of network resources. Employs a delaminated software layer enabling the decoupling of hardware from software. Supports automated network orchestration, which engenders simplicity and better management. Delivers telco-grade reliability and availability that ensures customers suffer no loss of service. Supports SDN-based dynamic service chaining that enables network components and systems to be easily connected, or chained together to create new communication services. Enables a high degree of performance and scalability that allows telcos to provide customers with attractive Service Level Agreements (SLAs) and Quality of Service (QoS). Delivers a high level of operational efficiency in capacity planning, provisioning and billing, thereby lifting productivity and profit margins. Ensures robust security that protects the integrity of the network and customer assets. Reduces complexity as applications become more sophisticated and complex, telcos need a platform that simplifies deployment and management, while maintaining resiliency. The great improvements that NFV can bring to networks are flexibility and efficiency... Diego Lopez Head of technology exploration at Telefonica I+D 3

6 White Paper 6 Ensuring Reliability and Availability in a New Virtualized World For telcos, reliability and availability are non-negotiable. In the telecoms industry, five nines (99.999%) network availability is the benchmark: The reputation of a telco rests on its ability to reliably connect calls and transfer data. If the network goes down, even for just a few seconds, millions of people can be affected. System failure not only results in loss of revenue for the operator, it can seriously damage its reputation and, in some cases, lives could be at stake if a call to the emergency services doesn t go through, the caller may not have a second chance. The question for telcos is not whether network components will fail (they will), it s what happens in the event of a failure. Can the network tolerate a fault and continue to deliver service? Or will a network failure result in loss of service? Historically, in a virtualized environment, transparent fault tolerance hasn t been possible, making full-blown NFV a risky proposition for telcos. But the latest innovation from Stratus Technologies allows telcos to unlock the power of both NFV and SDN, while maintaining telco-grade reliability. Stratus has developed a solution that enables an application to achieve high performance, keep running and maintain state (it remembers the preceding events in a given sequence of interactions with a user) in the event of a system fault or failure. Some alternative solutions can keep state, but the performance deteriorates, while others maintain reasonably high availability, but are not stateful. If a stateless application fails, it has to restart the sequence of interactions with the user, which is not acceptable for mission-critical telecoms that support functions such as identifying which cell a customer is on or whether they have credit on their account. With the Stratus solution, if a stateful application (deployed in fault-tolerant mode) fails, the application transparently continues to run on the secondary server, with the same state as the primary application: state is not lost. Software-Defined Availability Stratus has moved the downtime prevention and recovery decisions outside the application layer into the underlying operating layer a concept called Software-Defined Availability (SDA). Unlike traditional hardware-based availability solutions, uptime is not dependent on a specific set of dedicated servers it is effectively abstracted from the application and from the hardware. SDA provides portability, adaptability and injectability (or integration). Resources can be easily moved to where they are needed, while providing high levels of system performance. Availability levels can be easily adjusted according to requirements and be injected and integrated with third party software through orchestration, open APIs and modular software layers, such as a kernel-based virtual machine (KVM) solution. The key to all successful cloud architectures lies in the abstraction of services at different layers in the architecture. Stratus delivers SDA by applying availability logic at multiple layers within the cloud. This means a lower performance overhead than with other fault-tolerant approaches and avoids the costs and static nature of application-based availability options. The Stratus solution captures the state of the primary system at the appropriate time to create globally consistent state and applies that to a secondary standby host. In the event of a fault on the primary host, the secondary can pick up execution starting from the most recent statepoint without losing any state. If failure occurs while an application is deployed in fault-tolerant mode, the application continues to run on the secondary server, without any loss of state. If failure occurs while an application is deployed in high availability mode, the application can be brought back up instantaneously. With the SDA, any application with any availability requirement can be run in the cloud with application transparency. Stratus has developed a solution that enables an application to achieve high performance, keep running and maintain state (it remembers the preceding events in a given sequence of interactions with a user) in the event of a system fault or failure.

7 White Paper 7 Figure 2: The advantages of software-defined availability By contrast, providing availability at the application layer is time consuming, labor intensive, complex and typically inefficient when deployed in a 1+1 architecture to achieve stateful redundancy (see Figure 2). Moving to a cloud architecture also offers other major benefits. Whereas traditional availability solutions are rigid, a cloud architecture enables the telco to automate availability, changing parameters as required. For both native cloud and legacy applications, the abstraction of availability from the hardware or application layer enables a telco s executives to change the level of availability based on application requirements at any given time. Telcos can switch applications between fault-tolerant, high availability and general availability modes without the need to make application code changes. This intelligent, dynamic approach to availability significantly reduces cost, complexity and risk without compromising reliability. Stratus Cloud Solutions A private and hybrid OpenStack-based solution, Stratus Cloud Solutions provide software defined, fully automated, selectable levels of resiliency to cloud workloads. The solution supports full stateful fault tolerance, with geo-redundancy, providing transparent service continuity. Traditional approaches to fault tolerance require duplicate or triplicate resources, limiting utilization to 50% or 33% respectively, and resulting in high costs. By contrast, Stratus StatePoint Technology allows utilization levels of 80% to 90%, resulting in increased efficiency and uncompromised reliability, at a fraction of the resource cost. Stratus Cloud Solutions provide software defined, fully automated, selectable levels of resiliency to cloud workloads.

8 White Paper 8 Stratus Cloud Solutions consist of two products - Availability Services and Workload Services (see Figure 3). Availability Services enable telcos to achieve stateful continuous availability for mission critical workloads, as well as offering other availability level options for less critical workloads. They leverage the KVM hypervisor with added extensions to provide full transparency of the availability level assigned to each application. Workload Services enable fast, easy and efficient deployment and management for all workload types in OpenStack based clouds. They provide Intelligent Dynamic Workload Management that leverages Heat and other standard OpenStack services to provide faster deployment and management of all virtualized and cloud applications, with selectable levels of resiliency and availability for each application. Compatibility with ETSI Standards Figure 4 shows where the Stratus Cloud Solutions fit into the NFC architecture defined by standards body ETSI, which is specifying NFV. In the ETSI specification, all the requirements of the environment, such as reliability, scalability, performance, security and openness, are embedded in the lower layers of the platform. There are three major components: Virtualized Network Functions (VNFs) is the software implementation of each network function, such as a firewall, deep packet inspection (DPI), load balancer and message router. NFV infrastructure (NFVI) is the virtualization layer that abstracts physical resources and converts them to virtualized versions. Management and Orchestration (MANO) is the layer that provides common management and orchestration of the virtualized and cloudified VNFs including service catalog, service instantiation and activation, run-time management, monitoring and scheduling of computing, storage, and translating network resources into consumable services. Figure 3: How Stratus Availability Services and Workload Services support virtualization

9 White Paper 9 Figure 4: How Stratus Cloud Solutions fit into the NFV architecture defined by ETSI Stratus Availability Services support the NFV infrastructure layer and enable telcos to dynamically match availability levels and infrastructure resources to applications transparently, only using what they need when they need it. This maximizes return on investment. Stratus Workload Services support virtualized infrastructure management and some aspects of orchestration. They enable the automated deployment and management of new applications, saving both time and money, and reducing the time needed for new deployments from days to minutes. Both solutions can also co-exist in a cloud environment with other vendors orchestration systems. Stratus is working with several leading telcos on proof-ofconcept deployments of NFV with stateful fault tolerance to show how telco-grade reliability can be achieved with this new architecture. At the NFV World Congress in May in San Jose, Stratus plans to demonstrate stateful fault tolerance and intelligent cloud workload management of multi-vendor VNFs with multiple levels of availability requirements in an OpenStack environment. The demonstration will involve both stateful and non-stateful VNFs and will provide benchmarks for performance and recovery time. Conclusions Stratus Cloud Solutions are to operator NFV environments what VMWare has been to enterprises, unlocking the same value, but enabling seven 9 s ( %) of stateful telco-grade reliability and higher network efficiencies. By enabling the cloudification of the telco network, Stratus is paving the way for the widespread deployment of new converged IP networks that include NFV, SDN, IMS, LTE and WiFi. Beyond network functions, the Stratus solution provides a platform for telcos to offer competitive cloud propositions and big data analytics, potentially opening up valuable new revenue streams.

10 White Paper 10 In summary, Stratus Cloud Solutions provides the following benefits: Minimize CAPEX and OPEX with: - Increased resource utilization from sub-50% in traditional fault-tolerant architectures to more than 80% with intelligent software-based fault tolerance, at a fraction of the resource cost - Commercial-Off-The-Shelf (COTS) hardware and open source software (KVM and OpenStack) - Automated deployment and management that reduces human errors and complexity - Business self-service that reduces deployments from days to minutes Provide transparent service continuity through fully stateful resiliency and availability for applications without code change Optimize ROI with one solution that supports: - Deployment and management of all applications with a choice of availability levels - Open, standards-based and multi-vendor support of NFV, SDN, IMS and other applications Stratus has a long and successful history of working with telcos. In the early 1990s, Stratus provided hardware fault-tolerant computing platforms, as well as SS7-based network software, to some of the largest telcos in the world. Stratus provided technologies and products used for network management and intelligent call control, including home location registers (HLR), number portability, soft switches and session border controllers (SBCs). Today Stratus is leveraging more than 30 years of experience of enabling %+ computing reliability, together with its telecom software experience, to create a stateful software-based fault-tolerant virtualization and cloud environment (based on OpenStack and KVM), that runs on standard Intel x86 COTS servers. This environment brings application transparent telcograde reliability to NFV, SDN, IMS and enterprise applications, making them statefully fault-tolerant and geo-redundant. Stratus is enabling telcos to deploy a fully virtualized NFV Infrastructure that provides a multi-application, multivendor, multi-platform, auto scale-out, liquid resource pooling platform, with SDA. This infrastructure gives the elco a macro-orchestration capability that provides intelligent dynamic automated cloud workload management and resource optimization. Specifications and descriptions are summary in nature and subject to change without notice. Stratus and the Stratus Technologies logo are trademarks or registered trademarks of Stratus Technologies Bermuda Ltd. All other marks are the property of their respective owners Stratus Technologies Bermuda Ltd. All rights reserved