Superfluid Deployment of Virtual Functions: Exploiting Mobile Edge Computing for Video Streaming

1. Toward Superfluid Deployment of Virtual Functions: Exploiting Mobile Edge Computing for Video Streaming Stefano Salsano(1), Luca Chiaraviglio(1), Nicola Blefari-Melazzi(1), Carlos Parada(2), Francisco Fontes(2), Rufael Mekuria(3), Dirk Griffioen(3) (1)CNIT / Univ. of Rome Tor Vergata, Italy; (2) Altice Labs, Portugal; (3) Unified Streaming, Netherlands Soft5 Workshop - First International Workshop on Softwarized Infrastructures for 5G and Fog Computing, in conjunction with ITC 29 Genoa, Italy - 8th September, 2017 A super-fluid, cloud-native, converged edge system

2. Outline • Superfluidity project: goals and architecture • Mobile Edge Computing (MEC) • Video Streaming with Late Transmuxing (LTM) • Combined MEC/LTM Video streaming testbed 2

3. Superfluidity project Superfluidity Goals • Instantiate network functions and services on-the-fly • Run them anywhere in the network (core, aggregation, edge), across heterogeneous infrastructure environments (computing and networking), taking advantage of specific hardware features, such as high performance accelerators, when available Superfluidity Approach • Decomposition of network components and services into elementary and reusable primitives (“Reusable Functional Blocks – RFBs”) • Platform-independent abstractions, permitting reuse of network functions across heterogeneous hardware platforms 3

4. The Superfluidity vision 4 Current NFV technology Granularity Time scale Superfluid NFV technology Days, Hours Minutes Seconds Milliseconds Big VMs Small components Micro operations • From VNF Virtual Network Functions to RFB Reusable Functional Blocks • Heterogeneous RFB execution environments - Hypervisors - Modular routers - Packet processors …

5. Heterogeneous composition/execution environments 5 • Classical NFV environments (i.e. by ETSI NFV standards) – VNFs are composed/orchestrated to realize Network Services – VNFs can be decomposed in VNFC (VNF Components) «Big» VNF «Big» VNF «Big» VNF «Big» VNF VNFC VNFC VNFC VM VM

6. Heterogeneous composition/execution environments 6 • Towards more «fine-grained» decomposition… • Modular software routers (e.g. Click) – Click elements are combined in configurations (Direct Acyclic Graphs)

7. Heterogeneous composition/execution environments 7 • Towards more «fine-grained» decomposition… • XSFM-based (eXtended Finite State Machine) decomposition of traffic forwarding / flow processing tasks, and HW support for wire speed execution

8. The Superfluidity Architecture 8 RFB #a RFB #b RFB #c RFB #n (node-level) RDCL script REE RFB#2 (network-level) RDCL script REE Manager REE User REE Resource Entity UM API MR API REE User UM API REE Resource Entity REE Manager (network-wide) REE RFB Execution Environment RFB#1 MR API(node-level) REE RFB Execution Environment

9. (Towards) Common Abstractions for Heterogeneous Environments 9 RFB Execution Environment(s) RFBs Description & Composition Languages (RDCLs) and tools • “Traditional” NFVI infrastructure hypervisors with Full VMs • Unikernel based virtualization • Software modular routers environments (e.g. Click) • Radio processing SW modules • Hardware packet processors • ETSI VNF descriptors / NEMO • MISTRAL – HEAT • Docker Compose … • Click configurations / SEFL / Symnet • PN (Process Networks), SDF (Synchronous Data Flow)… • XFSMs

10. Working prototype RDCL 3D: RFB Description and Composition Language Design Deploy and Direct 10 This is a regular VM (XEN HVM) These are 3 Unikernel VMs (ClickOS)

12. Mobile Edge Computing (MEC) Basics 12 Datacenter Core Central Office Central Office Customer

13. Mobile Edge Computing (MEC) Model 13 MEC Platform Dedicated/Specific Hardware Dedicated/Specific Hardware COTS Hardware Base Band Unit B (BBU) Base Band Unit A (BBU) Remote Radio Head A (RRH) Remote Radio Head B (RRH) CPRI CPRI (fixed) Central Office DC API API API API API MEC-App MEC-App MEC-App MEC-App MEC-App MEC-App Core DC

14. Mobile Edge Computing (MEC) Architecture 14 User Traffic Forwarding eNB/BBU User Traffic Forwarding CORE (EPC) MEC TOF GTP-U Encap S/DNAT Traffic Filter (UL) Router Traffic Filter (DL) GTP-U Encap MEC Host ME Service (TOF) ME Service (RNIS) ME Service (LOC) ME Service (DNS) ME App C (e.g. Video Streaming) ME App B (e.g. Augmented Reality) ME App A (e.g. IoT) GTP-U Decap GTP-U Decap NFVI User Traffic Forwarding UserTrafficForwarding API (LOC) API (DNS) API (NIS API (TOF) MEPlatform(BUS) Applications and Services (AS) Data Plane Forwarding (DPF) MEC System level ME Orchestrator Virtualized Infrastructure Management (VIM) Platform Manager ME App A Manager ME App B Manager ME App C Manager Rep MEC Edge level Management and Orchestration (MO)

15. Network scenario: sharing the HW infrastructure 15 RRHs RRHs RRHs ADSL Cable Fiber Fixed Networks vDSLAM/vOLT/vCTMS BBUBBU BBU µDC-PoP Edge Computing (MEC) Platform

16. Service Example: Local Offloading of Video Streaming (with Late Transmuxing) 16 Core DC MEC Host Data Plane Data Plane Traffic Offloading Function BBURRH

18. Basic Video Streaming deployment 18 JIT PACKAGER MPEG-DASH, HLS, HSS, HSD CDN MPEG-DASH, HLS, HSS, HSD Media Storage or Live Encoder Origin ServerCDN Proxy Cache End-user Devices

19. Late TransMuxing 19 1. Unified Origin: one ingest format, various output formats 2. Contribution: split and move to the edge 3. How? Use an intermediate optimal media exchange format between core and edge, cache this format

20. Late Transmuxing Prototype RFB based deployment 20 Video Content Storage Nginx Byte Range Cache Nginx CDN Cache Proxy Back endEdge end Manifest Generation Apache Origin Transmux App Manifest Generation Apache Edge Transmux App Multi bit-rate Encoder Front end Player page

22. Prototype architecture 22

23. UE (Bob) MEC/Video Streaming Demo User Traffic Forwarding eNB/BBU User Traffic Forwarding Server MEC TOF GTP-U Encap S/DNAT Traffic Filter (UL) Router Traffic Filter (DL) GTP-U Encap GTP-U Decap GTP-U Decap Data Plane Forwarding MEC Host NFVI User Traffic Forwarding UserTrafficForwarding Applications and Services • The LTM server in the core is initially contacted CORE (EPC) UO LTM UO Storage

24. MEC Host NFVI User Traffic Forwarding Applications and Services UserTrafficForwarding UE (Bob) MEC/Video Streaming Demo User Traffic Forwarding eNB/BBU User Traffic Forwarding Server MEC TOF GTP-U Encap S/DNAT Traffic Filter (UL) Router Traffic Filter (DL) GTP-U Encap GTP-U Decap GTP-U Decap Data Plane Forwarding Unified Origin LTM • The Management and Orchestration (MANO) layer instantiates the LTM application in the edge (so far, MANO is just a manual script execution) CORE (EPC) UO LTM UO Storage MEC Management and Orchestrator

25. MEC Host Unified Origin LTM NFVI User Traffic Forwarding Applications and Services UserTrafficForwarding UE (Bob) MEC/Video Streaming Demo User Traffic Forwarding eNB/BBU User Traffic Forwarding Server MEC TOF GTP-U Encap S/DNAT Traffic Filter (UL) Router Traffic Filter (DL) GTP-U Encap GTP-U Decap GTP-U Decap Data Plane Forwarding • After the LTM instantiation is fully operational, the MANO layer configures the TOF in order to redirect the video request to the new LTM CORE (EPC) UO LTM UO Storage MEC Management and Orchestrator

26. MEC Host Unified Origin LTM NFVI User Traffic Forwarding Applications and Services UserTrafficForwarding UE (Bob) MEC/Video Streaming Demo User Traffic Forwarding eNB/BBU User Traffic Forwarding Server MEC TOF GTP-U Encap S/DNAT Traffic Filter (UL) Router Traffic Filter (DL) GTP-U Encap GTP-U Decap GTP-U Decap Data Plane Forwarding • The subscriber will, transparently, start getting the video service from the edge LTM, which in turn accesses the central storage for contents CORE (EPC) UO LTM UO Storage

27. Testbed Results 27

28. Testbed Results Deployment time of Edge Video Streaming components 28

29. Thank you. Questions? Contacts Stefano Salsano University of Rome Tor Vergata / CNIT stefano.salsano@uniroma2.it http://superfluidity.eu/ The work presented here only covers a subset of the work performed in the project 29

30. References • SUPERFLUIDITY project Home Page http://superfluidity.eu/ • G. Bianchi, et al. “Superfluidity: a flexible functional architecture for 5G networks”, Transactions on Emerging Telecommunications Technologies 27, no. 9, Sep 2016 • S. Salsano, L. Chiaraviglio, N. Blefari-Melazzi, C. Parada, F. Fontes, R. Mekuria, D. Griffioen, “Toward Superfluid Deployment of Virtual Functions: Exploiting Mobile Edge Computing for Video Streaming”, Soft5 Workshop, 1st International Workshop on Softwarized Infrastructures for 5G and Fog Computing, in conjunction with 29th ITC conference, Genoa, Italy, 8th September 2017 • S. Salsano, F. Lombardo, C. Pisa, P. Greto, N. Blefari-Melazzi, “RDCL 3D, a Model Agnostic Web Framework for the Design and Composition of NFV Services”, submitted paper, https://arxiv.org/abs/1702.08242 • L. Chiaraviglio, L. Amorosi, S. Cartolano, N. Blefari-Melazzi, P. Dell’Olmo, M. Shojafar, S. Salsano, “Optimal Superfluid Management of 5G Networks”, 3rd IEEE Conference on Network Softwarization, NetSoft 2017, 3-7 July 2017, Bologna, Italy 30

31. The SUPERFLUIDITY project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No.671566 (Research and Innovation Action). The information given is the author’s view and does not necessarily represent the view of the European Commission (EC). No liability is accepted for any use that may be made of the information contained. 31