Network Functions Virtualisation (NFV)
Posted by Ultan Mulligan 1412733 HitsIntroduction
NFV in ETSIFounded in November 2012 by seven of the world's leading telecoms network operators, ETSI ISG NFV became the home of Network Functions Virtualisation (NFV).
Almost seven years and over 100 publications later, the ETSI ISG NFV community has evolved through several phases, its publications have moved from pre-standardization studies to detailed specifications (see Release documentation). The early Proof of Concepts (PoCs) efforts have evolved and led to a series of interoperability events (NFV Plugtests). This large community is still working intensely to develop the required standards for NFV transformation incorporating latest technologies, as well as sharing their experiences of NFV implementation and testing in multi-vendor environments.
ETSI ISG NFV, like any other ETSI Industry Specification Group is open to ETSI members and non-members alike, with different conditions depending on ETSI membership status. If you would like to participate in this work, please contact the NFV support team.
Building and Managing Softwarized Network FunctionsModern telecoms networks contain an ever-increasing variety of proprietary hardware. The launch of new services often demands network reconfiguration and on-site installation of new equipment which in turn requires additional floor space, power, and trained maintenance staff.
In a digital world, the innovation cycles accelerate and require greater flexibility and dynamism than hardware-based appliances allow. A hard-wired network with single functions boxes is tedious to maintain, slow to evolve, and prevent service providers from offering dynamic services.
In the same way that applications are supported by dynamically configurable and fully automated cloud environments, virtualized network functions allow networks to be agile and capable to respond automatically to the needs of the traffic and services running over it.
Key enabling technologies for this vision include SDN (Software Defined Networking) and NFV (Network Functions Virtualisation). SDN and NFV are complementary but increasingly co-dependent. While the former provides the means to dynamically control the network and the provisioning of networks as a service, the latter offers the capability to manage and orchestrate the virtualization of resources for the provisioning of network functions, either deployed in virtual machines or OS containers, and their composition into higher-layer network services.
Our Role & Activities
OverviewETSI ISG NFV undertakes work in 2-year phases.
Documents published during the first phase (2013-2014) were considered as pre-standard studies and are sometimes referred to as “Release 1”.
The ISG NFV community has continued its work by developing normative specifications, as well as informative studies. The specification of new features and capabilities in planned releases had as outcome subsequent tranches referenced as "Release 2", "Release 3", etc.
Going forward, the ISG NFV continues to develop new specifications that meet the needs of the industry, with maintenance cycles for its already published specifications. The ISG NFV dedicates a continuous support for proper referencing of NFV specifications by industry stakeholders, including not only service providers or network equipment vendors, but also other implementers such as open-source communities. Progress in the industry is continuously monitored, including feedback from implementations, open-source communities, and other standards bodies, and the identification of gaps to be addressed.
Abbreviations of the NFV working groups mentioned in this page:
* The REL working group has merged with IFA and TST has merged with the SOL Working Groups.
Started 2023: NFV Release 6Release 6 focuses on architecture and infrastructure with interfaces, modeling, etc. to extend current features and new features such as (not exhaustive list):
Architecture evolution and simplification. New infrastructure. New virtualization forms. Latency aspects. Started 2021: NFV Release 5NFV Release 5 builds on top and leverages the results of ETS ISG NFV documents published as part of the Release 4. The Release 5 introduces new features on top of the specified capabilities and features in previous Releases and continues features not completed in Release 4.
Network connectivity integration and operationalization for NFV - container networking enhances the NFV architectural framework to provide support for multiple networks connectivity for OS container-based VNF. NFV-MANO automation and autonomous networks, the scope of the feature covers the following areas: NFV-MANO support for managing autonomous networks, enabling higher level of automation for NFV-MANO, intent-based principles for external exposure network services management. NFV enhancements for 5G, the feature enhances the NFV architectural framework to further support 5G network deployments. Multi-tenancy enhancements for NFV-MANO, the scope of the feature covers the following areas: multi-tenancy technology to share IT resources securely among multiple tenants that use the cloud, virtualization-based features as a means to isolate tenants, association/disassociation of tenancy and NFV-MANO objects, definition of isolation expectations of tenants, management of tenants. VNF generic management functions, the feature analyses and defines the type of OAM functions for VNFs that can be generalized and be provided as a "generic function" supporting the provisioning, connectivity, configuration, testing and monitoring of VNFs on a virtualized platform. Policy management models, the feature defines the models necessary for policy management, while the architectural enhancements for the introduction of the policy framework and the specification of a policy engine, with its procedures, interfaces and handling of the input events, goals and output/actions is not in scope of this feature. NFV for vRAN, The scope of this feature covers the following areas: study the advances concerning the virtualization of the RAN and profile the NFV framework to determine how it can support virtualized RAN (vRAN) use cases, • identify key technical challenges relevant to architectural, operational and management aspects, in case the NFV architectural framework is leveraged to support virtualization of the RAN, • provide recommendations for enhancements to the NFV architectural framework and its functionality, aiming to provide further support for vRAN use cases, • based on the recommendations, enhance when needed the overall NFV-MANO framework, existing NFV-MANO interfaces and descriptors. Green NFV, the scope of the feature covers the following areas: analyse aspects of NFV (VNF design, NFV-MANO and VNF operation, deployment configuration of NFV-MANO, NFVI, etc.) that have impact on energy consumption and those that can enable smart energy NFV and power saving features, identify design guidelines needed for optimizing energy consumption, specify enhancements to specifications on interfaces and information model, augment exposed KPIs and metrics to enable resources orchestration and VNF/NS LCM to operate following power saving policies. VNF configuration, the scope of this feature covers the following areas: provide guidelines on the use of the configuration options available in the NFV framework and the types of configuration data applicable to each of these options, specify related enhancements to the set of ETSI NFV specifications needed to improve interoperability between VNFs and independently-developed VNF configuration management functions and further facilitate automation of VNF configuration. Flexible VNF deployment, the feature has two parts: deployable modules and dynamic capacity. The deployable modules part was added late to Release 4. The dynamic capacity part introduces support for parameterizing the VDU attributes related to capacity in the interfaces. Physical Infrastructure Management, the scope of the feature covers the following areas: define requirements for physical infrastructure management in the NFV-MANO framework, provide a common information model for describing hardware attributes and statuses, and specify operations for managing infrastructure hardware with respect to life cycle and FCAPS of physical resources, profile existing solutions related to hardware management. VNF management gaps with Open Source, will produce a report on VNF management gap analysis with open source projects.The "Release 5 Definition" lists all the new features proposed for the Release 5.
Similarly, as in the previous Release, the completion of the specification of features in Release 5 at different stages follows a phased approach, commonly referred to as "drops".