The present document reviews virtualisation technologies and studies their impact on the NFV architectural framework and specifications. It also provides an analysis of the pros and cons of these technologies.
The present document provides requirements for the hypervisor domain as it pertains to an operator's network. It focuses on gaps between Network Functions Virtualisation (NFV) use cases and the industry state of art at the time of publication. Therefore requirements that are deemed to be supported by most hypervisor solutions at the time of publication are not repeated in the present document.
The widespread adoption of virtualised implementation of functions has brought about many changes and challenges for the testing and benchmarking industries. The subjects of the tests perform their functions within a virtualisation system for additional convenience and flexibility, but virtualised implementations also bring challenges to measure their performance in a reliable and repeatable way, now that the natural boundaries and dedicated connectivity of physical network functions are gone. Even the hardware testing systems have virtualised counterparts, presenting additional factors to consider in the pursuit of accurate results.
The present document specifies vendor-agnostic definitions of performance metrics and the associated methods of measurement for Benchmarking networks supported in the NFVI. The Benchmarks and Methods will take into account the communication-affecting aspects of the compute/networking/virtualisation environment (such as the transient interrupts that block other processes or the ability to dedicate variable amounts of resources to communication processes). These Benchmarks are intended to serve as a basis for fair comparison of different implementations of NFVI, (composed of various hardware and software components) according to each individual Benchmark and networking configuration evaluated. Note that a Virtual Infrastructure Manager (VIM) may pay a supporting role in configuring the network under test. Examples of existing Benchmarks include IETF RFC 2544 Throughput and Latency (developed for physical network functions).
Although many metrics for the performance and utilization of the Network Function Virtualisation Infrastructure (NFVI) components have been in wide use for many years, there were no independent specifications to support consistent metric development and interpretation. The present document provides the needed specifications for key NFVI metrics.
The present document specifies detailed and vendor-agnostic key operational performance metrics at different layers of the NFVI, especially processor usage and network interface usage metrics. These metrics are expected to serve as references for processed and time-aggregated measurement values for performance management information that traverses the Or-Vi and/or Vi-Vnfm reference points of the NFV architectural framework. The present document contains normative provisions.
Although many metrics for the performance and utilization of the Network Function Virtualisation Infrastructure (NFVI) components have been in wide use for many years, there were no independent specifications to support consistent metric development and interpretation. The present document provides the needed specifications for key NFVI metrics.
The present document specifies detailed and vendor-agnostic key operational performance metrics at different layers of the NFVI, especially processor usage and network interface usage metrics. These metrics are expected to serve as references for processed and time-aggregated measurement values for performance management information that traverses the Or-Vi and/or Vi-Vnfm reference points of the NFV architectural framework. The present document contains normative provisions.
The present document provides methodology guidelines for interoperability testing of NFV features, starting from a review of some basic concepts for interoperability testing and their fit in an NFV environment and a methodology for the development of interoperability test specifications illustrated with examples of basic NFV operations. A high level analysis of some core NFV capabilities allows to identify a generic architecture for the associated System Under Test configurations, and to classify some initial Interoperability Feature areas.
The present document is organized as follows:
Clause 4 provides an overview of common interoperability concepts and testing methodology guidelines.
Clause 5 identifies a generic system under test (SUT) architecture and some initial SUT configurations for interoperability testing of basic NFV capabilities.
Clause 6 identifies and analyses some initial NFV interoperability feature areas and outlines for each of them the impacted functional blocks and interfaces, as well as the applicable SUT configurations described in clause 5.
The present document is an informative report on methods for pre-deployment testing of the functional components of an NFV environment. The NFV components addressed in the present document include Virtual Network Functions (VNFs), the NFV Infrastructure (NFVI) and the NFV Management and Orchestration (NFV MANO). The recommendations focus on lab testing and the following aspects of pre-deployment testing:
Assessing the performance of the NFVI and its ability to fulfil the performance and reliability requirements of the VNFs executing on the NFVI.
Data and control plane testing of VNFs and their interactions with the NFV Infrastructure and the NFV MANO.
Validating the performance, reliability and scaling capabilities of Network Services.
The present document specifies requirements for the purpose of Software Modifications, such that NFV service availability and continuity is maintained. All types of software related to Network Function Virtualisation (NFV) - e.g. Virtual Network Functions (VNF), Management and Orchestration (MANO) and Network Function Virtualisation Infrastructure (NFVI) as well as required controlling and supporting functionality will be addressed. Where applicable, external specifications may be referenced to avoid duplication of work. The present document contains normative provisions.
The present document describes a quality accountability framework for NFV. This release focuses on service quality management of network services, VNFs, NFV infrastructure, management and orchestration elements.
The present document describes the following aspects of the Quality Accountability Framework:
Roles, covered in clause 4 Roles in the NFV Ecosystem.
Responsibilities, covered in clauses 5 Responsibilities by Role and 6 Responsibilities for Key Cloud
Characteristics. Service quality measurements and demarcation points, covered in clause 7 Quality Measurement Framework.
The present document develops a report detailing methods for active monitoring of VNFs, NFVI and E2E network services and detection of failures. It addresses the following two aspects of active monitoring:
Periodic testing of VNFs and service chains in a live environment to ensure proper functionality and performance adherence to SLAs.
Failure prevention and detection - Active monitoring methods for failure prevention (proactive) or timely detection and recovery from failures. Failures include loss or degradation of network connectivity, loss or degradation of session capacity, loss of services, VM failures, VM stalls, etc.
The present document proposes that the monitoring agents be on boarded into the NFV environment, just like other VNFs.
Engineering Committee TR-42 develops and maintains voluntary telecommunications standards for telecommunications cabling infrastructure in user-owned buildings, such as commercial buildings, residential buildings, homes, data centers, industrial buildings, etc. The generic cabling topologies, design, distances and outlet configurations as well as specifics for these locations are addressed. The committee’s standards work covers requirements for copper and optical fiber cabling components (such as cables, connectors and cable assemblies), installation, and field testing in addition to the administration, pathways and spaces to support the cabling.
The present document specifies the interface requirements, the interfaces and the necessary information elements enabling the fault, configuration and information, performance, state and log management of NFV-MANO functional entities.
In addition, the present document also describes the framework to support the management of NFV-MANO functional entities.
The different aspects specified in the present document have been analysed firstly in ETSI GR NFV-IFA 021
