Can be customer location

or provider PoP

Location

WAN Accelerator
Deep Packet Inspection
( DPI)

vE-CPE

Multiple Functions can be

virtualized

NFV aims at virtualizing Network Element or certain function of of Network Element in

Service Provider network by using commodity machines like x86 servers.

What is NFV

Intrusion Detection/
Prevention System

Both E-CPE ( Enterprise Access Router) and

PE ( Provider Edger) can be virtualized

Virtualization of E-CPE
and PE

Faisal Khan
NFV Mindmap V 2.0
Telecomlighthouse.com

QoS
V-PE

NG-Firewall

NFV Use Cases

Layer 2 or layer 3
capabilities

Standard IT virtualization technologies ( Cloud

Computing)

Use standard servers and commodity switches to reduce costs.

Start here, Move Clock Wise

Or
Jump to the topic

Firewall

Can also host some or all of

the functions of Ve-CPE

Technology Motivated
from

Innovate and rollout Services

quickly
Motivations/
Drivers of NFV
Reduce Power and space usage by using
commodity servers

Standardized and Open

interfaces

SGW
Serving Gateway

Mobile Core and

IMS
4G

Operation innovation through

common tools

PGW
Packet data network
gateway

Intrusion
Detection System
Security

Serving GPRS
support node

SGSN

Firewall

Basic Concepts

3G
Gateway GPRS
support node

GGSN

Call session
control function

CSCF

Mobile Base
station
Node B, eNodeB

Mobile Network
Elements
IMS

MME
Mobile Core

Media Gateway
Control function

Many Types of
Equipment

MGCF
Benefits

GGSN, SGSN

Target Areas of NFV

"Commoditiazation"

Setup Box

Elasticity, Flexibility,
Quick reconfiguration

Home
Enivronment

The following functions are virtualized:

Baseband radio processing unit, Phy, MAC, RLC, RRC
Complete base station or part
of base station is virtualized

Two Models

HLR, RNC

Home Router

Mobile Base
Station

For C-RAN, above functions ( in BBU) and also

switching/load balancing is virtualized

CPE

CG-NAT
These functions include but not limited to
Firewall, DHCP,NAT and VPN

Many functions of CPE are taken

to service provider cloud

Virtual CPE

Virtualization of Home
environment

Switching

BNG

Routing

SDN was originated in labs by Academia.

Differences and
Similarities

Both refers to software centric network

Virtual Network
Function

VNF

Virtualizes a Network Element or some

function of a network element

Example includes VNF for

Router, Switch, Base Station etc

SDN emphasizes separation of data and control plane; NFV aims at

virtualizing network hardware gear.
VNF Manager

Both refers to commoditization. Commoditization is a by-product of

SDN but the main focus of NFV

NFV

Use Cases

Service, VNF &

Infrastructure
Description

ic

NFV

NFV
Infrastructure

Compute, Memory and Network

Resources

Different Blocks

EMS 1

EMS 2

EMS 3

Complete hardware and software

environment in which VNFs are deployed

For example-Physical resources like

x86/Commodity Server and Virtual resources

The physical part of

of NFVI

For example
Commodity servers

New Topic

Ve-Vnfm
VNF Manager

VNF 2

Or-Vi

VNF 3

Vn-Nf

I
FV

N truc
ras
Inf

V
NF

e
tur

Arc
hite
ctu
re

Virtual
Compute

NFVI

Vi-Vnfm
Virtual
Memory

Virtual
Network

Virtualization Layer

NF-Vi

Vi-Ha
Compute

Memory

Virtualization Layer

Virtual Compute, Memory and

Network

Network

VIM

VNF

What is VNF?

Responsible for decoupling hardware

resource from software resource

Abstracts hardware resource

into software resource

Example:
HyperVisor

VIM-Virtualized
Infrastructure
Manager

The result of abstraction of

hardware resources

Virtualization
Infrastructure Manager

VNF (Virtual Network Function) represents

the function to be virtualized.

Example-Virtual
Machine

Manages NFVI

Resource management of
Compute, Memory and Network

Creates end to end

services among VNFs

Virtual Network
Function

Orchestration

Two functions
Manages resources to be utilized among among VIMs
in case there are multiple VIMs in network

VNFC

NFVI
NFVI is the totality of all software and
hardware on which VNFs are built up

NFVI

Manages VNF- This can

be proprietry

Se-Ma
Or-Vi

NFV

Network Functions
Virtualization

SDN can be said as enabler for NFV

Element Management
System

Orchestration

VNF 1

SDN can make communication between Management/

Orchestration and VNFs more flexible and efficient.

EMS

Os-Ma

OSS/BSS

s s
Ba ition
fin

How SDN can

help NFV

Management through Open

Interface

NFV Management
& Orchestration

De

SDN makes it more efficient and flexible for VMs/VNFs to

communicate within same host or distributed host architecture

NF
Vr
wit elati
h S on
DN

SDN does not need NFV for its implementation and vice versa; but
if implemented together can synergize each other

Manages VNF

Virtual Network
Function Component

VNF can be composed of multiple

functions that together make the VNF

Functional View
of VNF

Some vendors may implement network element

as one VNF, others as collection of VNFCs

Five different types of

interfaces

Stands for NFV

Infrastructure

SWA-1

With other VNFs

SWA-2

Between VNFCs

SWA-3

Between VNF
Manager and VNFC

SWA-4

With element
Management system

SWA-5

With NFV
Infrastructure

Has three main

domains
Computational and
Storage resources

Direct vs Indirect
communication

Hypervisor communicate with NIC through vSwitch,

this could by severe performance issue

Hypervisor abstracts physical resources of compute domain

to virtual domain( virtual machine)

VNFC to VNFC communication if they

are geographically separated

Responsibility of different
communication like

Scenario 1

Compute domain

Hypervisor
domain

How VNFCs communicate

with one another

Description

Network Infrastructure
domain

There are
multiple ways

Through Hardware switch

Scenario 2

Through vSwitch in Hypervisor

Scenario 3

Through vSwitch enhanced in

performance by DPDK

Scenario 4 &5

Through eSwtich embedded in

NIC

Scenario 6

Direct serial bus

communication

Different ways to
communicate

VNF

Communication of Orch. And

Management with VNF/VNFC

Communication channel
between different VNFs
Virtual Machine
VNF is fully deployable on COTS
By COTS type
Virtual machine is the virtualization
container in which VNF/VNFC runs

COTS mean Commercial Off the

Shelf. For example x86 Server

Two types
Some VNFC still needs some
specialized hardware

Virtual Machine has processor, memory and NIC as a physical machine

has-Hypervisor creates virtual machine from physical machine
Hypervisor
Agnostic

By Virtualization
Environment ( By Hypervisor
and Container)

Broad network
access of NFVI

VNF depends on the hypervisor

environment it runs on
Hypervisor
dependant

On demand self
service in NFVI

End to End service should be possible through variaty of transport

media and through different networks

Higher layer container

dependant
5 essential characteristics of cloud
applied to NFVI ( as per NIST)

Not Elastic

NFVI should be able to support VNF of other operators-Multi Tenancy

Elastic up/down

Performance can be increased (up)

or decreased ( down)

Elastic in/out

VNFC can be added (in) or removed

(out)

By Elastic Nature
Rapid Elasticity of
NFVI

VNF is dependent on higher layer

container, for example Java environment

References

Types of VNF

Resource Pooling

Upscale, downscale of computing, storage and network resources

should be possible because of service load or power consumption

VNF can run in any

hypervisor
environment

1. ETSI GS NFV 002 V1.2.1 (2014-12)-NFV Architectural Framework

2. ETSI GS NFV-SWA 001 V1.1.1 (2014-12)- Virtual Network Functions Architecture
3. ETSI GS NFV-INF 001 V1.1.1 (2015-01)- Infrastructure Overview
4. ETSI GS NFV 001 V1.1.1 (2013-10)- Use Cases

Full Elastic

Both up/down and in/out is possible

Measured service in
NFVI
Increasing VNF
resilience

Distributed VNFs or VNFCs on

different hosts

For scalability and redundancy

purposes

Typically VNFs need layer 2 connectivity from

infrastructure , layer 3 is provided by VNF themselves