NFV and SDN have been matured over the years and we have seen Service Providers migrating their customers to the new business models enabled by the capabilities of this flexible and elastic network architecture. Several aspects of the network transformations are very well addressed but others are still causing hesitations on the execution of rolling out new services in the carrier and enterprise network. The ultimate goal remains to simplify the network and build dynamic networks where physically purpose build appliances for WAN, Firewall and Router applications are provisioned in a virtual environment with the same level of carrier grade functionality and greater flexibility to address the network demand. To get there, the telecom industry is has created several initiatives to standardize on these efforts of network transformations and address multiple deployment models for the end-to-end Software Defined Infrastructure.
The standardization efforts have seen great progress to address the aspect of a multi-vendor environment specifically around so called MANO for management and organization addressing the NFV orchestration, VNF manager and Virtualized Infrastructure Manager (VIM). Organizations like the Linux Foundation created the Open Platform for NFV (OPNFV) as a base initiative by bringing together all aspects for a carrier-grade platform including the ETSI-NFV elements as framework. Other initiative addressing the networking aspect for Software Defined Networking with the Open Networking Foundation (ONF) to address the challenges of commercial deployments of the OpenFlow® standard.
Evaluating the current status of NFV and SDN deployments and the initiatives, we can see an indication of hardware and software separation. Ultimately, the service provider should be capable to provision any hardware resource in the network according to the demand of the network and its Virtual Network Function as well the services required at any given time. That sounds quite simple, however, reality indicates that carrier-grade requirements will remain a major aspect for new services. In addition, the network transformation is not completed in most of the cases and the need for “carrier grade” services remains as longest the network is operated in a hybrid approach combining old and new network topologies.
Network Security in the NFV deployment model remains a major building block what need to be integrated to guarantee Virtualization platform security and NFV identity and access management. And this applies not only for the Virtual Network Function layer and orchestration layer but also on the hardware layer. Therefore, optimized COTS platforms to leverage the security aspects in combination of processing and networking capabilities addressing these aspects remaining a crucial aspect for NFV and SDN deployments for carrier and enterprise deployments.
In preparation to a roll out to a 5G network infrastructure where the network is sliced by carrying multiple vertical interconnects some applications becoming centralized, others operating in hybrid mode of public and private cloud, and yet other applications are moving towards the edge of the network. That creates as subset of networks for specific network loads and therefore NFV and SDN is essential to address these deployment scenarios. The biggest transformations are towards that virtual environment are:
- Virtual CPE’s (vCPE)
- Mobile Edge Computing (MEC)
- Cloud Radio Access Networks (C-RAN)
- Broadband Remote Access Server (BRAS)
- Content Delivery Networks (CDN)
With a 30 Years history in Network Security and telecom appliances, Lanner has developed a broad portfolio to address these specific deployment scenarios for NFV and SDN as well created an eco-system with the framework for NFV and SDN deployments for carrier and enterprise networks. The combination of all aspects of the network provides the framework of acceleration for network deployments as well the adoption to the rollout of new business models to deploy new services.
With 2017 taking off and a 5G rollout in 2020, Lanner has optimized its solution portfolio and eco system to help bringing solutions to the market what will accelerate the deployment and adopt to the new business conditions.
As the experts in network security and telecom, we will be showcasing a few deployment scenarios there the world talks security at the upcoming RSA 2017 Conference in San Francisco, Moscone Center on February 13th to 17th. Live demonstrations will be in the Lanner booth N4803. Learn More:
Addressing a secure NFV and SDN use case for the rollout of vCPE deployments will be showcased at the upcoming Mobile World Congress in Barcelona on February 27th to March 2nd at the Fira Gran Via in Barcelona.
Hope to see you there!