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This section provides an overview of the NFV (NFaaS) use case.
Introduction
Network Function Virtualization (NFV) is a technique that decouples the functions from specialized hardware in the case of devices such as middleboxes, and implements them as software over industry-standard high volume servers. The intended results of NFV are the ease of service deployment and cost reductions.
This use case demonstrates a proposed method for introducing such abstractions through Network Function as a Service (NFaaS), a scalable and flexible NFV system where the smallest unit of provisioning is a service, a collection of VMs that provides a specific network functionality.
Motivation
The primary challenges that network operators face today are the handling of the explosive demand of mobile traffic, and introducing and operationalizing new services while reducing costs. To combat these challenges, service providers strive for:
- Agility, flexibility, scalability to their network.
- Reduction of capital expenditure (CAPEX) and operational expenditure (OPEX).
- Accelerated service implementation speed.
- Reduced operational complexity and increased visibility of system states.
Service providers have started looking to Network Function Virtualization (NFV) as a possible solution to the above four criteria, as it promises to bring flexibility and agility to Service Provider networks by moving network functions from dedicated appliances and middle boxes to generic servers.
While NFV can reduce CAPEX because commodity servers may be used efficiently by VMs, it increases OPEX as service providers now have to contend with increased management complexity due to:
- The management and orchestration of a large numbers of VMs on commodity servers
- The management of network function software on the VMs.
- How VMs must be interconnected based on subscriber’s service contract also really complex matter.
One proposed solution to handling these complexities is to create an abstractive notion of a Service to work with, rather than a collection of servers or VMs. The goal of NFaaS is to provide a means to create and manipulate these Services.
The Service Abstraction
A service is a unit of functionality that can be scaled up and down, as well as composed with other services in order to create new ones. The service is the abstraction of a Virtual Network Function (VNF), a unit of network functionality running on one or more VMs. In the usual case, multiple VMs are used to provide highly available and performant functions.