Standard

The present document provides a problem statement on implementing LI in NFV and identifies the necessary capabilities to be provided in NFV to meet the requirements outlined for telecommunications capabilities in general in ETSI TS 101 331.
 
The present document identifies the challenges of providing LI in an NFV. The present document is intended to give guidance to the NFV community and to the wider LI community on the provision of LI in an NFV.

The present document has been developed to describe the security and trust guidance that is unique to NFV development, architecture and operation. Guidance consists of items to consider that may be unique to the environment or deployment. Supplied guidance does not consist of prescriptive requirements or specific implementation details, which should be built from the considerations supplied.
 
Guidance is based on defined use cases, included in the present document, that are derived from the Security Problem Statement and are unique to NFV. Relevant external guidance will be referenced, where available.

The present document specifies requirements and templates for describing Network Functions Virtualisation (NFV) Network Services (NSs) in the form of meta-data.

The present document defines the interfaces supported over the Os-Ma-nfvo reference point of the NFV-MANO architectural framework as well as the information elements exchanged over those interfaces.

Network Functions Virtualisation (NFV) Release 2; Management and Orchestration; Os-Ma-Nfvo reference point - Interface and Information Model Specification

The present document develops specifications for packaging of VNFs to be delivered to service providers, focusing on the holistic end-to-end view of the VNF Package lifecycle, from design to runtime, capturing development as well as operational views. The present document provides an analysis of end-to-end VNF Package lifecycle management operations based on use-cases and NFV Architectural Framework functional blocks.
 
A VNF Package contains all of the required files and meta-data descriptors required to validate and instantiate a VNF.
 
Standardized meta-data descriptors are required to:

• describe the NFV infrastructure resource requirements for a VNF in a service provider environment;
• describe design constraints and other dependencies in order for the VNF to successfully install, instantiate and terminate; and
• describe VNF operational behaviour including VNF lifecycle events (e.g. scaling, upgrading).

Standardized packaging and validation of VNFs is required to:

• provide a consistent, documented method for VNF providers to package VNFs;
• harmonize the service provider on-boarding process for VNFs coming from different VNF providers;
• ensure integrity, trust and auditability of a VNF Package;
• allow for a flexible and extensible VNF packaging structure that accommodates a wide variety of NFV infrastructure scenarios; and
• allow the packaged VNF-related meta-data to be interpreted and the packaged VNF to be instantiated in a wide variety of orchestration systems irrespective of technology choice or infrastructure environment.

The present document develops specifications for packaging of VNFs to be delivered to service providers, focusing on the holistic end-to-end view of the VNF Package lifecycle, from design to runtime, capturing development as well as operational views. The present document provides an analysis of end-to-end VNF Package lifecycle management operations based on use-cases and NFV Architectural Framework functional blocks.
 
A VNF Package contains all of the required files and meta-data descriptors required to validate and instantiate a VNF.
 
Standardized meta-data descriptors are required to:

• describe the NFV infrastructure resource requirements for a VNF in a service provider environment;
• describe design constraints and other dependencies in order for the VNF to successfully install, instantiate and terminate; and
• describe VNF operational behaviour including VNF lifecycle events (e.g. scaling, upgrading).
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Standardized packaging and validation of VNFs is required to:

• provide a consistent, documented method for VNF providers to package VNFs;
• harmonize the service provider on-boarding process for VNFs coming from different VNF providers;
• ensure integrity, trust and auditability of a VNF Package;
• allow for a flexible and extensible VNF packaging structure that accommodates a wide variety of NFV infrastructure scenarios; and
• allow the packaged VNF-related meta-data to be interpreted and the packaged VNF to be instantiated in a wide variety of orchestration systems irrespective of technology choice or infrastructure environment.

Network Functions Virtualisation (NFV) adds new capabilities to communications networks and requires a new set of management and orchestration functions to be added to the current model of operations, administration, maintenance and provisioning. The NFV Management and Orchestration (NFV-MANO) architectural framework has the role to manage the infrastructure and orchestrate the resources needed by the Network Services (NSs) and Virtualised Network Functions (VNFs).
 
In order to guide the development of the specification of the interfaces exposed between the NFV-MANO Functional Blocks (FBs), it is important to have a clear and consolidated set of functional requirements to be addressed by the NFV-MANO. The present document is providing functional requirements on NFV MANO e.g. VNF lifecycle management (LCM), NS LCM, virtualised resource management, etc.
 
The functional requirements specified in the present document are mainly derived from functional requirements identified in ETSI GS NFV 002, ETSI GS NFV 003, ETSI GS NFV 004, ETSI GS NFV-MAN 001, ETSI GS NFV-SWA 001, ETSI GS NFV-REL 001 and ETSI GS NFV-INF 001 or derived from concepts defined in these documents.

Network Functions Virtualisation (NFV) adds new capabilities to communications networks and requires a new set of management and orchestration functions to be added to the current model of operations, administration, maintenance and provisioning. The NFV Management and Orchestration (NFV-MANO) architectural framework has the role to manage the infrastructure and orchestrate the resources needed by the Network Services (NSs) and Virtualised Network Functions (VNFs).
 
In order to guide the development of the specification of the interfaces exposed between the NFV-MANO Functional Blocks (FBs), it is important to have a clear and consolidated set of functional requirements to be addressed by the NFV-MANO. The present document is providing functional requirements on NFV MANO e.g. VNF lifecycle management (LCM), NS LCM, virtualised resource management, etc.
 
The functional requirements specified in the present document are mainly derived from functional requirements identified in ETSI GS NFV 002, ETSI GS NFV 003, ETSI GS NFV 004, ETSI GS NFV-MAN 001, ETSI GS NFV-SWA 001, ETSI GS NFV-REL 001 and ETSI GS NFV-INF 001 or derived from concepts defined in these documents.

The present document is an informative architectural study that identifies different viable architectural and functional options for the partitioning/distribution/consolidation of functionality amongst NFV-MANO functional blocks defined in NFV architectural document ETSI GS NFV 002 and further refined in NFV-MANO architectural framework ETSI GS NFV-MAN 001, as well as the potential impact in each case on reference points, on interfaces associated with the reference points, and on information elements exchanged over those interfaces.

The present document specifies the network acceleration related interfaces supported over the Vn-Nf reference point of the NFV architectural framework between a VNF and a dedicated switch controlled by that VNF. The present document also defines information elements exchanged over those interfaces.
 
The present document is built on the use of the Dynamic Optimization of Packet Flow Routing (DOPFR) mechanism (see use case described in ETSI GS NFV-IFA 001). Based on DOPFR, the present document aims to design a common interface allowing a Network Intensive VNF (NI-VNF) to accelerate its data plane processing on a dedicated switch.