This article discusses the disruptive impact of ETSI NFV on traditional telecom operators and telecom equipment vendors, the architecture of ETSI NFV, network function virtualization (NFV) in mobile core networks, and its implications.
1. The Disruptive Impact of ETSI NFV on Traditional Telecom Operators and Equipment Vendors
Network Function Virtualization (NFV) is a product of the convergence of Communication Technology (CT) and Information Technology (IT).
In October 2012, to accelerate the promotion of the NFV concept, 13 operators initiated the establishment of the Network Function Virtualization Working Group under ETSI, officially known as ETSI ISG NFV, dedicated to defining the requirements and system architecture for network virtualization. The goal of ETSI NFV is to virtualize various network elements in mobile and fixed networks on open IT platforms to meet the explosive growth of dynamic service demands in the mobile internet era with lower costs and higher flexibility, and to break free from dependence on vendor-specific hardware systems and closed software platforms.
As the most influential research organization in the NFV field, ETSI NFV currently has over 170 member organizations, covering almost all top operators, equipment vendors, and IT manufacturers in the IT and CT fields. ETSI NFV is not a strict international standardization organization and does not formulate international standards; instead, it outputs and influences the industry and related standardization organizations through technical white papers, requirement documents, and liaison letters. A market research report on NFV released by IHS Infonetics in July 2015 indicated that the NFV market space will grow from $950 million in 2014 to $11.6 billion in 2019, with a compound annual growth rate of 65%.
In today’s increasingly competitive environment, traditional equipment product architectures dominated by proprietary hardware and pre-planned construction models can hardly meet the demands of high-speed data business development. The ETSI NFV technology will become an important technical means for operators’ network restructuring, architectural restructuring, operational restructuring, and business restructuring. It will decouple the software and hardware of traditional telecom equipment, utilizing standardized IT hardware platforms and virtualization technology to replace proprietary telecom network equipment, thereby enhancing network operational flexibility, improving management and maintenance efficiency, and reducing costs.
2. The Architecture of ETSI NFV
NFV disrupts the traditional closed proprietary platform concept in telecommunications and introduces a flexible resource management philosophy. The NFV technology mainly consists of three domains (Figure 1):
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Network Function Virtualization Infrastructure (NFVI)
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NFVI includes computing, storage, and network hardware resources and their corresponding virtualization resources, as well as the virtualization layer that supports resource invocation for VNF, such as COTS servers and general-purpose switches.
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Virtualized Network Function (VNF)
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VNF is the software implementation of network element functions, running on top of NFVI, such as the logical implementation of network elements in EPC networks: vMME, vEPG, vPCRF, etc.
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NFV Management and Orchestration (MANO)
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MANO centralizes all NFV-related management functions within the NFV framework; it manages NFVI and VNF, orchestrates network services, and manages the lifecycle of virtualized physical/software resources and VNF.
Figure 1. The Architecture of ETSI NFV
Undoubtedly, the era of NFV is fully upon us. However, the scale of operators’ networks is vast and the scenarios are complex; how can NFV be implemented?
In the networks of mobile operators, there are numerous hardware devices with different functions in the mobile core network. Currently, major participants in the industry chain, including mainstream operators and equipment vendors, have reached a preliminary consensus on the development of NFV: the development path of NFV will start from the core network.
Network elements in traditional EPC core networks can be categorized into two main types: control plane network elements and user plane network elements.
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Control Plane Network Elements: Mainly include MME, HSS, PCRF, etc.; control plane devices mainly handle mobility management, session management, user subscription management, policy control, etc., focusing on control plane signaling interactions;
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User Plane Network Elements: Mainly include SGW, PGW, etc.; user plane devices accept signaling control from control plane devices and mainly handle user data exchange and forwarding, billing data processing, policy execution, etc.
The implementation of NFV in the EPC core network will first start with the control plane, followed by the user plane. The core network will become an important scenario for operators to introduce NFV.
3. Network Function Virtualization (NFV) in Mobile Core Networks and Its Impact
The virtualized mobile core network reduces network complexity by utilizing standard industrial servers, switches, and storage devices to deploy network applications, providing flexible network elasticity while improving resource utilization and reducing operational costs.
The mobile core network achieves the deployment of network elements on the same hardware platform through NFV technology, which is especially suitable for control plane network element devices that mainly handle control signaling. Due to the strong computing capability of COTS servers, they are suitable for processing state transitions and signaling interactions.
All network elements will be uniformly deployed on general-purpose server hardware (H/W), abstracted through the virtualization layer into normalized virtual resources for upper-layer mobile core network element software applications to invoke. For user plane devices, necessary hardware acceleration functions need to be implemented to handle high-speed user data.
Figure 2. NFV in Mobile Core Networks
After the network function virtualization (NFV) of EPC, the network can be divided into three layers (Figure 2): the device layer (Hardware), the virtual layer (Execution Environment), and the application layer (vEPC).
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Device Layer: Includes computing, storage, and network resources; homogenized and normalized through virtualization technology; and can be dynamically shared by various upper-layer logical network applications.
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Virtual Layer: Manages the device layer, organizes the underlying facility modules, and invokes underlying resources according to business needs;
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Application Layer: Virtualizes logical network elements (such as MME, SGW, PGW, PCRF, etc.) through software. With this architecture, operators only need to maintain a unified virtualization platform, while different network elements will run as virtual machines on top of the virtualization platform. Adding new network elements or upgrading existing ones will manifest as new virtual machine instantiation or software version upgrades within the virtual machine.
As virtualization technology shields the differences of underlying physical platforms, the issue of cross-network element and cross-vendor hardware resource sharing will be resolved. Additionally, utilizing the dynamic migration and generation features of virtual machines, combined with intelligent management of the virtualization platform, enables dynamic scaling of network elements based on changes in business volume, fundamentally improving hardware utilization and software portability while significantly reducing operational costs and application deployment time.
Operators have fully recognized the importance of NFV for the future evolution of networks and its immense commercial value. However, the transformation towards NFV is not an overnight process, and future large-scale commercialization faces significant challenges.
Conclusion:
ETSI NFV brings disruptive impacts to traditional telecom operators and telecom equipment vendors. ETSI NFV technology will become an important technical means for operators’ network restructuring, architectural restructuring, operational restructuring, and business restructuring; the core network will be the first important scenario for operators to introduce NFV. The implementation of NFV in EPC core networks will first start with the control plane, followed by the user plane. As virtualization technology solves the problem of cross-network element and cross-vendor hardware resource sharing, and allows for dynamic scaling of network elements based on changes in business volume, it fundamentally improves hardware utilization and software portability while significantly reducing operational costs and application deployment time. However, the transformation towards NFV is not an overnight process, and future large-scale commercialization faces significant challenges.
The author of this article, Shang Hong, is a key teacher at the Ericsson Academy and a certified senior solution architect and lecturer globally for Ericsson. Since joining the Ericsson Academy in 2004, he has been engaged in training and consulting work in telecom network operations, the convergence of telecom networks and the internet, PCC intelligent pipelines, IMS multimedia services, and other areas.
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