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CEG5101 Oct 2023 Notes13

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15 views

CEG5101 Oct 2023 Notes13

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VI XY
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CEG5101: Modern Computer Networking

Network Function Virtualization

Lecturer:
Mohan Gurusamy
Associate Professor, Electrical and Computer
Engineering, National University of Singapore

Reference and Source (Content and Figures):


William Stallings, “Foundations of Modern
Networking: SDN, NFV, QoE, IoT, and Cloud”,
Pearson, 2016
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Background and Motivation for
NFV

 NFV originated from discussions among major


network operators and carriers about how to improve
network operation in the high-volume multimedia era
 The overall objective of NFV is leveraging standard IT
virtualization technology to consolidate many
network equipment types onto industry standard
high-volume servers, switches, and storage, which
could be located in data centers, network nodes, and
in the end-user premises
 The NFV approach moves away from dependence on
a variety of hardware platforms to the use of a small
number of standardized platform types, with
virtualization
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network functionality
Virtual Machines

 Virtualization technology enables a single PC or


server to simultaneously run multiple operating
systems or multiple sessions of a single OS
 A machine running virtualization software can
host numerous applications, including those
that run on different operating systems, on a
single hardware platform
 The host operating system can support a
number of virtual machines (VMs), each of
which has the characteristics of a particular OS
and, in some versions of virtualization, the
characteristics of a particular hardware platform
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Architectural Approaches
 Virtualization abstracts the physical hardware from the VMs it
supports
 Virtual machine monitor, or hypervisor, is the software that

provides this abstraction


 It acts as a broker, or traffic cop, acting as a proxy for the

guests (VMs) as they request and consume resources of the


physical host
 A VM is a software construct that mimics the characteristics of
a physical server
 It is configured with some number of processors, some

amount of RAM, storage resources, and connectivity


through the network ports
 It can be powered on like a physical server, loaded with an

operating system and applications, and used in the manner


of a physical server
Unlike a physical server, this virtual server sees only the resources it has been

configured with, not all the resources of the physical host itself
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NFV
 This isolation allows a host machine to run many VMs, each running the same
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or different copies of an operating system, sharing RAM storage, and network
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NFV Concepts

NFV
Is defined as the virtualization of network functions by implementing
these functions in software and running them on VMs

Is a significant departure from traditional approaches to the design


deployment, and management of networking services

Decouples network functions, such as Network Address Translation


(NAT), firewalling, intrusion detection, Domain Name Service (DNS),
and caching, from proprietary hardware appliances so that they can
run in software on VMs

Builds on standard VM technologies, extending their use into the


networking domain

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NFV Concepts
 Virtual machine technology enables migration of dedicated
application and database servers to commercial off-the-
shelf (COTS) x86 servers
 The same technology can be applied to network-based
devices, including:

Network • Such as switches, routers, network


access points, customer premises
function equipment (CPE), and deep packet
devices inspectors
Network-
• Such as firewalls, intrusion detection
related systems, and network management
compute systems
devices
Network- • File and database servers attached to
attached the network
storage
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NFV Principles
 Three key NFV principles are involved in creating practical
network services:

Service chaining Management and Distributed


• VNFs are modular and orchestration architecture
each VNF provides (MANO) • A VNF may be made up
limited functionality on • This involves deploying of one or more VNF
its own components (VNFC),
• For a given traffic flow and managing the
lifecycle of VNF instances each of which
within a given • Examples include VNF implements a subset of
application, the service the VNF’s functionality
provider steers the flow instance creation, VNF
service chaining, • Each VNFC may be
through multiple VNFs to deployed in one or
achieve the desired monitoring, relocation,
shutdown, and billing multiple instances
network functionality • These instances may be
• MANO also manages the
NFV infrastructure deployed on separate,
elements distributed hosts to
provide scalability and
redundancy

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NFV Benefits
 If NFV is implemented efficiently and effectively, it can
provide a number of benefits compared to traditional
networking approaches:
 Reduced CapEx, OpEx

Reduced OpEx, in terms of power consumption and
space usage, by using commodity servers and
switches, consolidating equipment, and exploiting
economies of scale, and reduced network
management and control expenses.
 The ability to innovate and roll out services quickly
 Use of a single platform for different applications, users
and tenants
 Elasticity:

scale up/down (add/remove resources for VNF)

Scale out /in (increase/decrease the VNF instances)
 Provided agility and flexibility, by quickly scaling up or down
services to address changing demands
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