July Newsletter – Network Functions Virtualization (NFV)

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As networks are populated with a large variety of proprietary hardware appliances, launching a new network service becomes more and more complex, time consuming and expensive process while the demand for technology, services and innovation is accelerating. Network Functions Virtualization aims to address this challenge by leveraging standard IT virtualization technology to consolidate many network equipment types onto industry standard. 

Introduction

Network Operators’ networks are populated with a large and increasing variety of proprietary

hardware appliances. To launch a new network service often requires yet another variety and finding the space and power to accommodate these boxes is becoming increasingly difficult; compounded by the increasing costs of energy, capital investment challenges and the rarity of skills necessary to design, integrate and operate increasingly complex hardware-based appliances. Moreover, hardware-based appliances rapidly reach end of life, requiring much of the procure- design-integrate-deploy cycle to be repeated with little or no revenue benefit. Worse, hardware lifecycles are becoming shorter as technology and services innovation accelerates, inhibiting the roll out of new revenue earning network services and constraining innovation in an increasingly Network-centric connected world.

Network Functions Virtualization (NFV) aims to address these problems by leveraging standard IT virtualization technology to consolidate many network equipment types onto industry standard high volume servers, switches and storage, which could be located in Datacenters, Network Nodes and in the end user premises.

We believe Network Functions Virtualization is applicable to any data plane packet processing and control plane function in fixed and mobile network infrastructures.

We would like to emphasize that we see Network Functions Virtualization as highly complementary to Software Defined Networking (SDN). These topics are mutually beneficial but are not dependent on each other. Network Functions can be virtualized and deployed without an SDN being required and vice-versa.

The Benefits

Virtualizing Network Functions could potentially offer many benefits including, but not limited to:

P  Reduced equipment costs and reduced power consumption through consolidating equipment and exploiting the economies of scale of the IT industry.

P  Increased speed of Time to Market by minimizing the typical network operator cycle of innovation. Economies of scale required to cover investments in hardware-based functionalities are no longer applicable for software-based development, making feasible other modes of feature evolution. Network Functions Virtualization should enable network operators to significantly reduce the maturation cycle.

P  Availability of network appliance multi-version and multi-tenancy, which allows use of a single platform for different applications, users and tenants. This allows network operators to share resources across services and across different customer bases.

P  Targeted service introduction based on geography or customer sets is possible. Services can be rapidly scaled up/down as required.

P  Enables a wide variety of eco-systems and encourages openness. It opens the virtual appliance market to pure software entrants, small players and academia, encouraging more innovation to bring new services and new revenue streams quickly at much lower risk.

 For more ...... See Vega's July  Newsletter