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ADDRESSING CHALLENGES IN ADOPTING SDN & NFV

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Carriers are experiencing an increasingly challenging environment in which they have to continuously scale their current networks in order to meet the rapidly growing traffic demand while having to settle for declining revenues. The abstract disconnect between the exponential data traffic growth (49% CAGR from 2016 to 2020) and the revenue growth (2% CAGR from 2016 to 2020 ) has been continuously increasing due to a host of factors such as advent of smartphones, the ever-increasing video demand, and penetration of mobile broadband. To add to the problem, CSPs are also looking at solutions to launch new services quickly as they see competition from Over-the-Top (OTT) Players in this space. Lastly, another major problem that Communication Service Providers (CSPs) face is the increasing cost (CapEx and OpEx) and complexity of managing the networks, loaded with proprietary hardware and software. Clearly, new solutions have to be considered to replace the legacy setup which is not sustainable in the longer run. Network Functions Virtualisation (NFV) and Software Defined Network (SDN) are two key transformational solutions that will help service providers to evolve their static networks into dynamic and agile networks and realize CapEx and OpEx benefits. This will enable new services to be created, deployed and managed far more quickly and at far lower cost than has been possible in the past.

The European Telecommunication Standards Institute (ETSI) in its seminal white paper authored by Network Operators, published in October 2012, outlined the benefits, enablers and challenges for NFV and the rationale for encouraging international collaboration to accelerate development and deployment of interoperable solutions based on high volume industry standard servers. NFV aims to transform the way that network operators architect networks by evolving virtualisation technology to run network functions on commercial-off-the-shelf (COTS) servers and realise services through an orchestration system. SDN, a complementary technology to NFV, proposes separation of control and data forwarding planes to enhance performance, simplify compatibility with existing deployments, and facilitate operation and maintenance procedures. NFV and SDN promise to reduce CapEx, OpEx, Space & Power consumption and increase velocity of launching New Services by minimizing the cycle time to drive faster innovation.

While the NFV & SDN technologies have evolved to a level where they can be implemented in practice, challenges still exist to realize the promise they show.

Purpose built proprietary functions

Network functions have typically been built to execute on proprietary systems. In the move towards virtualization of these network functions, vendors are converting their purpose built systems to Virtual Network Functions (VNF) that can execute on COTS systems. However, many VNFs still exist as monolithic software functions thereby requiring high number of system resources to execute. Network functions when realized as VNFs, need to be re-architected to meet the principles of scalability and flexibility. For e.g. control plain and data plain functions needs to be able to scale independently and based on traffic demand for which a disaggregation of functionality in software of existing Physical Network Function (PNF) is required.

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Vendor independence or dependence

Vendors providing VNFs, promise performance on the specific hardware platform that they have tested their network functions. This puts a constraint on the service provider in choosing the platform of their choice and utilizing advances in chipsets to their benefit. Ideally, CSPs should be able to define their own reference platform and the VNFs should be able to execute on the platform of the CSPs choice with requisite functional and performance characteristics.

Integration issues

The ETSI NFV Industry Specification Group (ISG) has defined an architectural view of the NFV eco-system. However, every industry player realizes the network function eco-system in different ways and the vendor implementation is not necessarily in line with the specifications guideline. This in turn causes integration woes when integrating components from multiple vendors. For e.g. Not every VNF vendor provides a VNF manager (VNFM) or even if provided, the upstream interfaces may vary thus increasing the integration touch points. Every vendor seemingly offers open systems, but the interfaces are not yet standardized.

Legacy integration challenge

NFV & SDN proposes a radical change to the network eco-system which means introducing new systems in the network such as the NFV Orchestrator and SDN Controller. Service providers, over the years, have made significant investments in network equipment and B/OSS systems. The virtualized network environment to be introduced should be able to interwork with the existing legacy systems without disrupting services. Therefore the hybrid mode of operation becomes a critical challenge to surmount. Service providers have multitude of systems including COTS systems and bespoke developed systems. This increases the complexity of integration and it is needed to rationalize the systems being used by service providers.

Carrier grade networking

Virtualization in a IT world is mature, but in the context of networks, there are lot of concerns given the nature of criticality of networks. for e.g. Carrier grade networking requirements are different from enterprise grade requirements. It is imperative that carriers should view the carrier grade conformance of the overall system than at a unit level of individual components

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Business justification for implementing NFV and SDN

While over a period of time NFV & SDN promises to reduce CapEx and OpEx, there is still significant investment required to set up the transformational eco-system. Given the investment involved, lack of widely accepted standards, multitude of implementation alternatives available and unproven nature of inter-working between associated components & systems, it is becoming difficult for the potential adopters to define their business case and make a choice for implementation suitable for their requirement. Thus it is important for operators to analyze their business, their aspirations, their constraints, competitive environment and the emerging technology scenario to chalk out their transformation roadmap.

Proof of the pudding

Adopters want to see the proof of the pudding before embarking on their journey towards network transformation. This would mean that, rather than looking at individual components or systems, the larger end to end service needs to be considered and some sort of pre-integrated solution involving multiple vendors needs to be realized as a case in point. Service Providers, quite often, end up with an interminable number of trials or Proofs-of-concept which are a drain on time and money. Further protracted trials and repetitive trials for every Service Provider depletes the ability of innovative startups, who are not blessed with deep pockets compared to large established OEMs, to continue in business leading to untimely mortality of such innovators who bring in the much needed challenge to the large established OEMs to innovate faster – which would result in delivering greater good to the industry.

Addressing the challenges

Despite the challenges and concerns, Service Providers and Enterprises have expressed their intent to adopt SDN & NFV technologies to transform their network. Virtualized VoLTE, vCPE, SD-WAN are some of the key use cases under consideration. The industry has been working hard to realize service provider aspirations. Several specification organizations like the ETSI NFV ISG, Open Networking Foundation (ONF), TMForum and others have been working on well defining the pieces of the transformation puzzle. Vendors and 3rd party entities such as EANTC & Tech Mahindra have come up programs for validation and verification of virtualized network components. The industry has started to organize interoperability events. Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) are being defined to ease integration between multi-vendor components.

Tech Mahindra on its part has been creating enablers for facilitating adoption of SDN & NFV. It has roled out a focused program to enable Operator’s NFV / SDN and Digital Transformation.

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Tech Mahindra’s ‘RUN BETTER’ strategy aims to lower service providers and enterprises network TCO through operational efficiency. This would cover areas such as network design, realization, migration, operation & maintenance.

The “CHANGE FASTER” strategy aims to transform the networks of service providers and enterprises, leveraging technologies such as SDN, NFV, 5G, Cloud RAN, Cloud CPE, Multi-access edge computing, enhanced management and orchestration (MANO), software defined LAN / WAN and others.

With the “GROW GREATER” strategy, Tech Mahindra will help create new revenue generating streams through new-age smart services related to various verticals such as transportation, utilities, healthcare and others.

Tech Mahindra will accomplish these objectives through the various focused initiatives it has established. Tech Mahindra has established a SDN & NFV Center of Excellence (CoE) that will create competency in SDN & NFV technologies. It’s VNF Xchange program provides a comprehensive platform for vendors, service providers and enterprises to not only validate, benchmark & certify VNFs for functional and performance characteristics, but also in the context of a end to end solution. The Cloud CPE solution initiative of Tech Mahindra is to provide a universal CPE solution coupled with end-to-end managed solution, including cloud infrastructure for the CPE & edge appliances, deployment, operations and service management.

RUNBETTER

Operate CurrentNetworks

DeliveringOperationalExcellence

Create NewRevenue Streams

Bringing NewVertical Solutions

GROWGREATER

TransformNetworks

Leveraging Best-of-breed Technologies

CHANGEFASTER

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Through it’s initiative focused on MANO & OSS aspects, Tech Mahindra is addressing the challenges of hybrid networks by creating a automation enabled platform utilizing open source and COTS products. Tech Mahindra’s virtualized radio access network (RAN) initiatrive focuses on a virtualized, centralized processing, collaborative radio, and a real-time cloud radio access network.

Through its various initiatives, Tech Mahindra will support the service provider and enterprise community in its digital transformation journey utilizing SDN & NFV technologies. Its offerings include the following.

Conclusion

Overall, the industry momentum for adoption of NFV and SDN is good. Service providers and enterprises cannot afford to wait and watch. They need to define their requirements, identify use cases and start implementation. 5G and Internet of Things (IOT) requirements are going to stress the network demands. NFV and SDN are going to be the technologies that will enable service providers to RUN their networks in an optimized way, CHANGE themselves in to agile network service providers and GROW through innovative services.

Migration Consulting

SolutionDesign

Solution Deployment

NFVIntegration and

Testing

OrchestrationProgram

Management

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