We are going to be posting a series of blogs over the next few weeks to cover where we see the NFV landscape right now, the issues we see still outstanding, an assessment of the maturity of various layers to the NFV reference architecture (considering both the ETSI NFV and AT&T ECOMP frameworks), and where we see things moving in the future.
Itential has spent the last 2 years or so working with clients in a hands-on capacity trialing various tools and solutions for SDN and NFV. We have at a minimum seen detailed, and usually hands on, demos of the leading solutions out there. We have implemented many of them in lab environments to conduct extensive testing and Proof of Concept exercises. We will be using this experience, along with conversations with various vendors and other experts, to give you a comprehensive view of the state of NFV with regard to the tools and technology out there.
The goal is for this review of NFV to be something we repeat on a yearly basis as the space evolves, and probably ceasing as a majority of the tools and solutions reach maturity. We are a few years away from that, as you will see.
From a high level, the topics to be covered are:
- Competing Standards
- VNFs – maturity, approaches, future enhancements
- MANO:
- NFV Orchestration
- VNF Management
- VIM
- Leading competitors, including open source options
- Modeling of Services – End-to-End and within the NFV space (you can’t forget the integration of legacy technology as it will remain in place as NFV emerges as a viable approach)
- End-to-End Orchestration – Legacy technology, OSS, NFV, and the rest
- SDN Controllers
- Deep Dive on the leading Open Source initiatives:
- OPNFV
- Open Source MANO (OSM)
- Open-O
- OpenStack, and its various projects
- Etc.
- OSS and how it fits into the NFV picture
- Itential’s network automation solution and where it fits in all of the above
If there are topics you would like to see included, and you don’t think they are covered in one of the buckets above, please feel free to Contact Us to get our review of that area. We will cover any requests by extending the blog series, or directly contacting you to discuss, based on the nature of the request.
Timing-wise, we will release the first in the series in the next week, and then release each new entry roughly one to two weeks apart until we have hit on everything. I hope you are looking forward to taking this journey through where we are in the NFV space as much as we are looking forward to presenting it!
Coming up first, a review of two of the top standards floating around out there now: ETSI NFV, AT&T’s ECOMP architecture (that has recently been open sourced), and how they compare/are similar/differ.
Tags: Network Orchestration