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CTO’s guide to SDN, NFV and VNF

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CTO’s guide to SDN, NFV and VNF
Networkingandcommunicationsstandardsand
methodologies are undergoing their greatest
transition since the migration from analogue
to digital. The shift is from function-specific,
proprietary devices to software-enabled
commodity hardware.
Inthecontextofthemoderntransition,thiseBook
explains the three most popular terminologies
today – SDN, NFV, and VNF. It addresses why the
transition is happening and why it’s important
for any individual or organisation that has
responsibility for a network to understand
and embrace this emerging opportunity.
The potential benefits, and some deployment
andmanagementsolutionsforsoftware-enabled
networking,areaddressedthroughouttheeBook.
Canonicalisinvolvedinnetworking
and data communications
Canonical, the company behind Ubuntu, works
closely with its networking and telecoms
partners on all aspects of emerging networking
technologies and modern data communications.
We provide infrastructure and partner solutions
to support SDN and NFV infrastructures We also
offer unique performance and interoperability
testing for clouds and VNFs.
What you will learn

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CTO’s guide to SDN, NFV and VNF
Christopher Wilder
HeadofContent,Canonical
Christopher Wilder has domain expertise
in Cloud Computing and Infrastructure, the
Internet of Things (IoT), Machine Learning
and Business Analytics, Networking and
Communications and Software Defined
Infrastructure.
Chris is the co-author of the best-selling book,
Influencing the Influencers, and is a frequent
contributor to Forbes and TechTarget. He has
also published multiple columns on enterprise
applications in The New York Times, Boston
Globe, CEO Magazine, and others. He serves
on the board for TechTarget’s Cloud Advisory
board, and is a trusted advisor for dozens
of technology companies worldwide.
About the author

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CTO’s guide to SDN, NFV and VNF
Executive overview
Economic benefits of software based
networking
Why now?
The many meanings of SDN
Server virtualisation introduces SDN
Continuing to evolve SDN
SDN infrastructure layers
Network functions virtualisation – NFV
Contents
General purpose network hardware
Generic switch hardware and
SDN on servers
Do I need a cloud for SDN and NFVi?
Ubuntu for hyperscale
Deploying and managing SDN and VNFs
Performance and Interoperability
Canonical, SDN and NFVi leadership
Conclusion
About Canonical
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CTO’s guide to SDN, NFV and VNF
Network infrastructure is following the path of
serverhardware,whichmigratedfromapplication-
specific servers to virtual machines. We’re now
migrating from function-specific network
hardware to software-based virtual functions.
For organisations that already have virtual
machines deployed, you’re already using SDN
today. If you have a firewall or load balancing
service running as a virtual machine, you’ve
begun using NFV infrastructure, as well.
The premise of SDN and NFV technologies isn’t
new, but within your organisation, their rapidly
expanding use cases may be.
Operational expenditure can be dramatically
reduced by the flexibility of software-based
network infrastructure.
Software Defined Networking – SDN
Software on commodity hardware that coexists
with or replaces traditional, proprietary
network hardware, like switches and routers.
Network Functions Virtualisation – NFV
Generally refers to virtualising higher level
network functions, as software, on commodity
hardware. NFV infrastructure can run on top
of traditional network hardware, SDN-based
networks, or a combination of both.
Executive overview
Virtualised Network Functions – VNF
The specific network function that is now
a software service deployed on commodity
hardware, for example firewalls, IP services –
DHCP/DNS/load balancing, VoIP, IMS –
message services, RANs, EPCs, and more.

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Economic benefits of
software-based networking
Scaling and operating
SDNandNFVoffernearlyinfiniteeconomiesas
of scale. Most of the issues with oversubscribing
ports – not having enough, or undersubscribing
ports–buyingmorethanyouneed,areeliminated
when software is introduced to replace physical,
single-function devices. Time is money, and in a
software-driveninfrastructure,updates,upgrades
and changes are all faster and much simpler.
Thecostofcommodityhardwareistypicallymuch
lower than that of function specific network
equipment. Support costs also decrease, from
hardware maintenance cost to operational and
vendor support.
Decoupling
Movingnetworkcontroloutofproprietary
hardware devices and into a software
infrastructure, and migrating network
functions from single purpose hardware
to VNFs on commodity hardware, are both
examples of decoupling the desired function
from the hardware. Decoupling provides
anagilitythathasneverbeforebeenavailable
to network operators.
For example, when you decouple system
performance – data plane, from system
configuration – control plane, a network
upgrade from 4G to 5G can be done without
systemconfigurationmigrationorredefinition.
You just change the VNFs that control the
antennae.Similarly,anentirelynewnetwork
infrastructure could be overlayed
on an existing topology with SDN.
Beyond upgrades
New features and new network requirements
are increasingly being made. In a traditional
network approach, these capabilities either
aren’t made available or require new hardware
procurement, physical installation, and physical
connection. With SDN and NFV infrastructures,
new features and capabilities are deployed
as software.
Thesamecaremustbetakenwhenimplementing
new software features as with new hardware,
sointeroperabilitytestingandarchitecturaldesign
are still critical. The time to implementation
is dramatically reduced, though. Further in
this eBook interoperability and performance
testing are addressed as you read about
OIL and V-PIL.

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Why now?
Ecosystem
The ecosystem of available SDN and NFV
based solutions has grown and matured.
New software and hardware technologies
make commodity servers offer the same
capabilities, performance, and sometimes
even increased reliability.
Economics
As clouds and modern IT infrastructure continue
their explosion of growth, the economics of
traditional datacentre networking become
less desirable and completely unaffordable
for some organisations. SDN and NFV based
infrastructure solutions offer both OPEX
and CAPEX relief for organisations of all sizes.
Hardware
Advancements in commodity server hardware
IO and chipsets bring performance levels
to that of ASIC-based hardware – proprietary
systems. Hardware features like DPDK and
SR-IOV enable programmable data planes
withinserversthatmatchthespeedsoflegacy
function specific networking hardware.
Software
SDN and NFV both require an open, general
purpose operating system, Linux, running
on the commodity hardware that supports
them. Ubuntu (and the Ubuntu kernel) are
the platform that provides the reliability and
scalability,bothfromtechnicalandafinancial
perspective, that enables SDN and NFV
infrastructure today.
Theoperatingsystemiswheretechnologieslike
DPDK and SR-IOV are enabled and managed.
IO Visor is another example of open source
software that enables the Linux kernel
and associated network software to have
programmable and user-defined functions
in realtime, without restarting systems.
These, and others, are technologies that a
decision maker will consider when designing
SDN and NFV based infrastructures.

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The SDN concept
It’s best to think of SDN as an umbrella term, not
as a strictly defined idtea. It largely encompasses
twomaincategories.ThereisoverlaySDN,whichis
definedbysoftware,andthereishardwarebased
SDN,whichfocusesonseparatingthe control
ofnetworkhardwarefrom the hardware itself.
The different implementations of SDN
are not necessarily exclusive. In most cases,
organisations will benefit from both overlay
SDN technologies as well as hardware-based,
underlay SDN solutions.
Other SDN approaches also exist, but the
defining aspect of SDN is the change in focus
away from the network hardware itself to
the software that manages and operates it.
The many meanings of SDN
Overlay SDN
An overlay SDN allows any consumer of IT to
create your own entire datacentre network
on top of the existing infrastructure without
modifying any underlying hardware. This is
especially valuable in clouds where multiple
tenants, be them individuals or business units,
need network independence, isolation, and
autonomy. Overlay SDN lets the underlying
network or cloud operator offer network
independence to its consumer.
Hardware / underlay SDN
Hardware-based SDN solutions alleviate many
of the issues and constraints with traditional
networking hardware. The management –
control plane, of the hardware is separated
from the physical hardware itself – the data
plane. This means a generic network switch
can have features and functions dynamically
loaded in real time to change how it operates
and what its capabilities are.
A single physical device can replace several,
legacy network devices. This can reduce
the need for port undersubscription and
by programmatically adding functions
to devices with open ports, reduces port
oversubscription, as well, allowing better
balance of traffic universally across generic
network ports.

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CTO’s guide to SDN, NFV and VNF
Traditional datacentre networking
Before server virtualisation was commonplace,
every server had a single operating system,
typically a single application, and connected
to one or many legacy switch ports.
Network control and data flow are all managed
at an individual switch level. Further, every
networkcomponent throughout the network
infrastructure, from routers to advanced
network services like load balancers,
is locally and individually managed.
Two major issues are revealed:
1. The control of the network
equipment is tied to each device
2. Network equipment capability
is fairly inflexible
Server virtualisation introduces SDN
legacy switch
legacy switch
server

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CTO’s guide to SDN, NFV and VNF
Virtual switches provide SDN
to virtual machines – VMs
The advent of server virtualisation, for most
organisations, was the initial introduction to
software defined networking – SDN. As the
diagram illustrates, multiple operating systems
are running as virtual machines on a single server.
Each of these virtual machines has software
defined network adapters that connect to a
software defined, virtualised network switch.
The control and data planes for these virtual
machines are now managed at the server level
on commodity hardware, but the rest of the
network remains running traditional hardware.
virtual machine
virtual switch software
server

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CTO’s guide to SDN, NFV and VNF
Server virtualisation
datacentre networking
Since server virtualisation only provides SDN
capabilities for the VMs contained on each
individual server, the 2 major issues with
traditional networking remain:
1. The control of the network equipment
is still tied to each device
2. Network device capability remains
fairly inflexible
Continuing to evolve SDN
server
load banalcer
virtual machine
virtual switch software
legacy router
legacy switch
server
virtual machine
virtual switch software

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CTO’s guide to SDN, NFV and VNF
SDN for datacenter network
infrastructure
• Decrease capital and operational
expenditure
• Decouple the management – control plane,
from the device itself – data plane, whereby
centralising network control
• Tremendous increase in flexibility and
deployment of programmable network
infrastructure and network functions
server
virtual machine
virtual switch software
generic SDN switch
server
virtual machine
virtual switch software
VNF servers
1 to Many
router
load balancer
firewall
VPN

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Commodity server SDN
Since commodity servers can now serve as
part of the network infrastructure, their SDN
functionality is leveraged in different ways.
As illustrated on the page Server virtualisation
introduces SDN, virtualisation of servers has
made local, virtual switching a popular SDN
implementation. Some virtual switches have
controlsoftwarethatallowsthemtobemanaged
centrally and decouple the control plan from
the local host itself.
FAN networking
Another local-to-server SDN solution is Fan
Networking. Fan provides an IP address extension
capabilitytoLinuxcontainers,likeLXD, to increase
density of workloads without sacrificing
network performance or network addresses.
SDN infrastructure layers
SDN core and
OpenStack Neutron
Commodity servers also serve as SDN
core nodes. These servers are not typical
virtualisation hosts, but rather host specific
software that enable SDN functionality for
datacentre infrastructure. These could be
control nodes, core gateways, routers, etc.
Advanced SDN solutions like PLUMgrid ONS or
Juniper Contrail use redundant and hierarchical
servers to provide advanced networking and
overlay networking capabilities.
OpenStack Neutron is an example of an
SDN control node. Neutron uses plugins
to communicate directly with SDN overlay
solutions like ONS and Contrail to provide
user-serviceable, independent network
infrastructure to respective cloud tenants.
Commodity network
hardware SDN
There is a growing ecosystem of generic
network hardware. These are devices that
look like traditional switches or routers, but are
software-enabled by a 3rd-party. Ubuntu Core
is a general purpose IoT operating system that
you would install on generic network hardware,
and then potentially make it a layer two or three
switch, or advanced gateway or firewall, by
installing additional network software as Snaps.
The Open Compute Project has specifications
for networking that help define how generic
network hardware should be designed and
manufactured.OpenComputenetworkhardware
is like commodity servers, except there are more
network ports and more focus on network
throughput than general compute.

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CTO’s guide to SDN, NFV and VNF
NFV infrastructure –NFVi
The NFV concept is newer than SDN. While SDN
focusesonnetworkhardwareandtheseparation
of the data and control planes, NFV refers more
to application and network specific functions.
NFVinfrastructuredefinesallofthecomponents,
software and hardware, that enable NFV
for a given solution or organisation.
VirtualisedNetworkFunctions–VNF
VNF refers to the functions that are being
virtualised in an NFV infrastructure. Like
SDN, this means that functions that used to be
delivered by proprietary, stand-alone devices,
are now being written as software that runs
on Linux (like Ubuntu) on industry standard,
commodity hardware.
Network functions virtualisation – NFV
NFV deployment and architecture
NFV infrastructure can be deployed using
traditional network switching infrastructure,
or with SDN, or a combination of the two.
At present, combined SDN/NFV/traditional
infrastructure is most common, although the
components of the network core that support
NFV are most often SDN-based.
Ubuntu
legacy router
open compute SDN switch
open compute SDN switch
Ubuntu
Ubuntu
Core
Ubuntu
Ubuntu
virtual switch
software
virtual switch
software
Ubuntu
Core

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Open Compute Project (OCP)
The OCP provides specifications and design
documents for servers, racks, and, of course,
network switches. The designs naturally create
standards for the industry to follow.
The network hardware from OCP has dedicated
chips for passing data, and more ports than a
typicalcommodityserver,butofferscommodity
processors and memory subsystems that run
standard Linux operating systems like Ubuntu
Core. The functionality of the hardware is
enabled by software from industry network
vendors. The management of the software
is not integrated to the hardware at all, and
is generally centralised on control nodes
wherenetwork administrators can centrally
configure, monitor, reconfigure, update,
and even upgrade the infrastructure.
General purpose network hardware
Ubuntu Core
“Snappy” Ubuntu Core is a general purpose
IoT operating system. It is a lightweight,
transactional-based OS, making it ideal for
runningOCPswitches.UbuntuCoreisbased
on the concept of “Snaps”. A Snap is an
independently contained, isolated application.
Snapsinstallfromawebstoreinterface,providing
network operators a revenue or organisational
chargebackopportunity.ThereareSnapsavailable
that enable layer 2 switching, firewalls, routers,
gateways, and more network functionality.
They provide a software-modular approach
to network hardware. If a device requires
additionalorless–decommissioned,functionality,
it’s easily achieved by adding or removing a Snap.
Since both Ubuntu Core and the Snaps it
installs are transactional, automatic roll-back
occurs if there’s a problem. The inherently
isolated nature of a Snap also means that
there is the highest level of security.
Ubuntu Core on OCP hardware
• Revenue or chargeback opportunity
• Highest availability
• Isolation and security
• Versatile functional
• No-touch field upgrades

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Generic switch hardware
Generic switching hardware bridges the gap
betweenSDNandNFVoncommodityserversand
traditional switches. Generic switches provide
similar port capacity and ASIC throughput to
that of a traditional switch with the management
and deployment benefits of SDN. They can also
run some VNFs like firewalls and load balancers
to further increase their value.
Generic switch hardware
and SDN on servers
Commodity server hardware
Servers have physically limited port count,
restricted by total network adapter ports.
But internal connections – ports, become
virtual – unlimited, and functions are only
bound by physical hardware constraints –
CPU, memory, throughput. They offer all
of SDN and can run any VNF available.
You need both
Commodity servers provide great flexibility and
performance, but they need a top of rack or
centralised switch to efficiently communicate.
Traditional switching could achieve the goal
but modern, SDN-based switches extend
dynamicnetworkmanagementandconfiguration
beyond the reach of commodity servers and
traditional switches.
open compute SDN switch open compute SDN switch Ubuntu Ubuntu
Ubuntu
Core
Ubuntu
Core SDN
software
SDN
software

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Modern infrastructure
While the simple answer is no, you don’t
absolutely need a cloud to use SDN or NFV
technologies, you probably already have a
cloud or are working on a cloud initiative. In
general, SDN and NFV infrastructure run as
microservices, and those microservices are
best served by clouds, like Ubuntu OpenStack.
Do I need a cloud for SDN and NFVi?
Cloud benefits
A well-designed cloud gives you rapid scaling,
dynamic deployment, and workload bursting
beyond your premises. It can also allow
departmental,developmentandoperationalself-
service. All of these capabilities can be employed
by SDN and NFV infrastructure solutions.
Realising the economic and technical benefits of
acloudrequiresstandardisationandrepeatability.
Juju, discussed later in this eBook, helps
an organisation achieve those goals.

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The platform
As the Why Now? page of this eBook suggests,
Ubuntu is the platform of choice for SDN and
NFV infrastructure. Ubuntu is the basis for
Ubuntu OpenStack and for hyperscale cloud
computing.
More than 65% of large OpenStack clouds
run on Ubuntu. Ubuntu hosts more OpenStack
cloud workloads than all other operating
systems combined.
The growing ecosystem of SDN and VNF
software is built for deployment on Ubuntu.
Ubuntu for hyperscale
Scalable financial model that eliminates the
cost-prohibitive pain points of starting small
and growing big. Ubuntu Advantage for
OpenStack, which provides premium support
from Canonical, is priced with the economical
understanding of a hyperscale datacentre.
Scalable architecture from the kernel to
the tools used to manage applications on
Ubuntu, when features are implemented,
they’re all done with cloud scalability in mind.
Technologies like the LXD container hypervisor
and FAN networking increase density of
services on physical servers. They also both
have scalable management interfaces, to
support hundreds of server nodes as your
cloud grows.
Scalable services include offerings like
BootStack, a managed, hosted Ubuntu
OpenStack offering. BootStack scales to
hundreds of nodes, and includes OpenStack
training options, and optional SLAs. There
is also the option to completely transfer
management and control of your BootStack
environment to your own qualified,
operations staff.

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Design and deploy
The migration from single purpose physical
assets to virtualised and software assets
creates the need for a tool to design, deploy
and manage the SDN and VNF infrastructure.
Juju is an application modeling and
deployment tool. It uses the concept of
Charms to make the components of an SDN or
VNFs intelligent. By distilling the intelligence
into each individual component, design and
deployment are simplified and standardised.
Instead of relying on teams of consultants to
customise and deploy each component, Juju
can package multiple Charms into bundles
that can be deployed with consistency across
multiple regions and architectures.
Deploying and managing
SDN and VNFs
Modify and update
Seldom does a modern SDN or VNF deployment
remain static.SincethebundlesthatJuju deploys
are built from individually intelligent Charms, it
makes it relatively easy to interchange or update
specific components. It also makes it easy to roll
back to a previous bundle if things don’t
go as planned.
Modifications and updates can be accomplished
without the need for expensive consultants,
complex static scripts, or total redeployment
of the solution.

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Compatibility
SDN offers tremendous benefits in flexible
configuration options and improved methods
of data routing. It’s important that applications
work well in various SDN environments.
Canonical’s OpenStack Interoperability Lab – OIL
is able to run continuous integration testing
against multiple different SDN solutions with
various different workloads utilising their
networking paths. OIL ensures that modern
big data, analytics, and other cloud-based
solutions are compatible with modern
network infrastructure.
Performance and Interoperability
Performing well
Beyond interoperability, Canonical has
benchmarking capabilities that allow you
to understand where your solution, SDN,
NFV, or just a regular application, runs best.
Canonical’s Automated Benchmarking Service
– CABS is capable of running the exact same
workload across multiple different clouds,
including your own, and reporting back relative
performance. Since SDN and NFV infrastructure
can stretch beyond your datacenter,intoapublic
or external private cloud, it can be important
to have performance baselines across multiple
locations and solutions.
VNF performance – V-PIL
V-PIListheVNFPerformanceandInteroperability
Lab. It is another performance testing solution,
but focused solely on VNFs. Typically, many
VNFs work together in a service chain. Since
many VNFs are latency and throughput sensitive,
the VNF Performance Interoperability Lab is
able to automate test cases of service chained
VNFs and compare the results against a
functionally similar service chain that utilises
different VNFs.
V-PIL takes the guesswork out of deciding
on which VNF to use for a specific function,
from both an interoperability and
a performance perspective.

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Emerging standards
Many networking standards are derived from
the telecommunications industry. Canonical
has been an early adopter and supporter
of emerging telecoms standards, including
OSM and OPNFV.
OSM
Canonical is a founding member of Open
Source MANO – OSM. It is a reference
architecture for management and
orchestration of NFV infrastructure based
on ETSI standards and open source solutions.
Along with Ubuntu and Ubuntu OpenStack,
Canonical’smodelingandapplicationdeployment
tool, Juju, are all part of the initial OSM
reference architecture.
Canonical, SDN and NFVi leadership
Juju as a generic VNF manager
Juju plays a vital role as a generic VNF manager
for OSM. It enables the use of multiple VNFs
without disparate VNF management solutions.
Since it’s a generic modeling tool, it can also
modelanddeploytheOpenStackinfrastructure,
as well as additional services on top, like big data
processing, analytics, container management,
and more.
OPNFV
Canonical also supports OPNFV, the Open
Platform for NFV. The project’s goals are
to provide consistency and interoperability
between NFV vendors. As discussed on the
Performance and interoperability page of this
eBook, Canonical is also aligned with
OPNFV’s goals.
Canonical ecosystem
Working with networking leaders, like
Cisco, Juniper, PLUMgrid, Telefonica, and
dozens more, Canonical’s rapidly deployable
ecosystem of solutions is unequaled.
The unique ability of Juju to quickly model,
deploy, and integrate all the components of
a complex SDN or NFV infrastructure comes
from Juju’s use of Charms. Charms give an
application the intelligence to both ask for
the resources it needs, as well as offer the
resources it provides, and automatically
connect it to other Charmed applications.
Using the Juju Charms approach, an entire
OpenStack cloud, SDN overlay solution,
or NFV infrastructure, can be deployed
in less than an hour.

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Natural evolution
The industry transition from single function,
proprietary devices, to commodity, software
definedinfrastructureisanaturalone.Economics
have driven it, technological advancements
have enabled it.
It will become impossible to remain competitive
without SDN and NFV infrastructure. Every
organisation will have to transition. IT
departments for non-technical organisations,
telecoms operators, and cloud service providers
will all benefit from software based network
infrastructure. Even cloud-based businesses
already use SDN overlays every day.
Conclusion
Experience
Canonical has been the infrastructure for
the modern network of some of the world’s
largest telecommunications providers. The
Ubuntu family of solutions, Ubuntu, Ubuntu
OpenStack, and Ubuntu Core, provide an
economical, stable, and secure platform
for next generation, software defined
networks and network functions. From
Canonical’s Charm Partner Program, enabling
the largest SDN/VNF ecosystem available,
to a commitment to standards, like OSM
and OPNFV, the long term, demonstrated
investment is clear.
Customers, Network veterans, and startups,
all choose open systems, standards, and
interoperability. Canonical does, too.
To learn more, visit
Ubuntu OpenStack
Scalable clouds and infrastructure
Ubuntu Core
Contact us

23. CTO’s guide to SDN, NFV and VNF
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At Canonical, we are passionate about
the potential of open source software to
transform business. For over a decade, we
have supported the development of Ubuntu
and promoted its adoption in the enterprise.
By providing custom engineering, support
contracts and training, we help clients in the
telecoms and IT services industries to cut
costs, improve efficiency and tighten security
with Ubuntu and OpenStack. We work with
hardware manufacturers like HP, Dell and
Intel, to ensure the software we create can be
delivered on the world’s most popular devices.
And we contribute thousands of man-hours
every year to projects like OpenStack, to
ensure that the world’s best open source
software continues to fulfil its potential.
About Canonical