How should NFV be deployed today?

Network Function Virtualization is maturing among service providers, with many examples of successful NFV deployments in 2017. In 2018, service providers will continue to invest in NFV, expanding deployments to new applications and parts of the network, extending existing systems, and implementing more complex multi-vendor virtual network functions, or VNFs.

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Service providers have deployed NFV technology for a range of applications, including virtual customer premises equipment (vCPE), IP multimedia systems (IMS), evolved packet core (EPC), security, video and management. Service providers say NFV deployments are reliable, high-performance and can operate at scale.

Despite the many advantages of NFV in terms of scalability, flexibility and cost, most service providers say that it is still challenging to widely deploy NFV in the network. NFV deployment is complex and time-consuming, and there are still significant management and orchestration (MANO) challenges. Due to the large number of incompatible standards and specific vendor choices, buyers are not sure whether they will use NFV architecture in the long term.

Available NFV platforms

Hardware (i.e., server platforms) and associated infrastructure software are key components to a successful NFV deployment. Intel-based servers from HPE and Dell currently lead the NFV platform landscape, but ARM vendors are expected to increase their platform selection in 2018.

Selecting the right NFV infrastructure software is critical to the long-term success of NFV. For platform software, OpenStack and VMware continue to compete for the position of the number one NFV infrastructure choice.

Hypervisors remain a popular NFV platform option. Containers running NFV also offer significant performance advantages for NFV applications compared to hypervisors, although they are just beginning to move out of the lab for early proof-of-concept trials. Containers will continue to grow in popularity over time, with support from many VNF vendors in 2018, from 2019 to 2021.

Simplifying the appearance of NFV architecture

NFV Management and Orchestration Challenges

The immaturity of MANO standards continues to hinder large-scale NFV implementation, and the complexity of integrating NFV components and effectively deploying MANO will continue to be a challenge for most service providers.

However, the MANO standards community made significant progress in 2017. ONAP gained momentum after AT&T contributed hardened control, orchestration, management, and policy code. AT&T, Orange, China Mobile, Bell Canada, and many other service providers support ONAP.

Like other standards-based MANO options, ONAP is a broad platform with multiple options. It can be used in conjunction with OpenDaylight, OpenStack, and Open Platform for NFV to implement open source NFV.

IoT and 5G can help drive NFV deployment

With the advent of wireless 5G and IoT, NFV deployment is expected to accelerate as 5G deployments and IoT devices are increasingly connected to wireless networks. New 5G network deployments require a completely different network architecture, which will benefit from NFV and container technologies. For example, 5G relies on NFV to provide intelligence at the wireless edge to handle network slicing, traffic processing, and routing.

Connecting millions of IoT devices requires service providers to adapt their core and edge networks. NFV enables this adaptability by facilitating the improvements needed for mobile edge computing, analytics, and performance monitoring.

The rise of open source NFV

Service providers are driving the use of open source software for NFV deployments. Open source software is available for NFV infrastructure, MANO, and for specific applications as open source VNFs.

The goal of open source NFV is to accelerate NFV innovation and reduce costs by running low-cost software on commodity hardware. However, open source NFV implementation in production networks will require significant resources. Open source use of NFV will increase during 2018, but will still be a minority of overall deployments.

NFV strategy recommendations for service providers

The benefits of NFV include reduced costs, increased flexibility, and platform independence. In 2018, service providers will continue to deploy NFV in a variety of applications, with a focus on vCPE, mobile core, video, security, and management.

Vendor selection remains critical for NFV deployments due to overall complexity, integration requirements, and support for long-term architectures. Therefore, service providers should carefully select vendors to enable NFV across platforms, applications, and MANOs.

Here are some of the vendors service providers can choose from when deploying NFV:

• Large network equipment providers such as Ericsson, Huawei, Cisco and Nokia;
• IT vendors such as Intel, HPE, Red Hat, Dell EMC and VMware;
• VNF vendors provide products in specific areas such as SD-WAN, vCPE, IMS, security, and EPC.

How NFV deployments are changing

NFV initiatives are driven primarily by service providers to increase the use of virtualization and commodity servers. NFV combines these technologies with open software to fundamentally change how networks are built and operated.

Initially, service providers deployed NFV for decentralized applications in their networks. Since service providers have large operational networks and millions of monthly revenues, initial NFV deployments typically focus on applications to be developed, new services, or applications that are not directly involved in transmitting real-time data, such as voice and video.

To ease migration challenges and maintain service reliability, most service providers are beginning to implement NFV in phases. While NFV deployment remains challenging and complex, service providers are now looking to incorporate more multi-vendor VNFs and extend NFV to new applications.