Empowering Network Service Developers: Enhanced NFV DevOps and Programmable MANO

Abstract

Although network function virtualization redefined the role of the network service developer, existing concepts that are supposed to enable them are still limited, cumbersome and time consuming in regard to the promised flexibility. This article describes how to move forward from these initial steps, identifies the challenges network service developers face both during development and runtime, and explains how to overcome them with our service construction kit (SCK) and programmable MANO framework. We detail how our SCK facilitates the service creation process, resulting in two enhanced NFV DevOps cycles, test flexibility and quicker service development. We elaborate on our programmable MANO framework with both architectural considerations and a use case, to depict its customisability by network service developers, giving them finegrained control over their service throughout its end-to-end operational lifecycle.

Network Service and Resource Orchestration: A Feature and Performance Analysis within the MEC-Enhanced Vehicular Network Context

“…Thus, the deployment, update, and administration can be implemented by a software procedure. As an example for such management and orchestration platform, Soenen et al [19] thoroughly present their modular and programmable management and orchestration framework that can be tailored to a service, or a particular VNF. According to Soenen et al [19], the aforementioned customization can be achieved by constructing the so-called function-specific managers, and service-specific managers.…”

“…As an example for such management and orchestration platform, Soenen et al [19] thoroughly present their modular and programmable management and orchestration framework that can be tailored to a service, or a particular VNF. According to Soenen et al [19], the aforementioned customization can be achieved by constructing the so-called function-specific managers, and service-specific managers. These managers should be described and configured within VNF Descriptors (VNFDs), and Network Service Descriptors (NSDs), so they support MANO entities towards managing and orchestrating a specific service and its resources in a custom manner.…”

Open, Programmable, and Virtualized 5G Networks: State-of-the-Art and the Road Ahead

“…Metro-Haul focused on the design of an SDN-based optical transport infrastructure for 5G networks, and developed an OSM component for the management of the infrastructure in a distributed wide area network [166]. Similarly, 5G Tango has developed multiple components for OSM, including an emulator for the virtual infrastructure manager, and network slicing capabilities, while discussing and proposing possible extensions of the MANO concept for 5G into more advanced frameworks [138,167]. The 5GCity and 5G-MEDIA projects have used OSM as NFV orchestrator for management frameworks of networks for smart cities and media distribution over a Content Distribution Network (CDN), respectively [168,169].…”

Adaptive & Learning-aware Orchestration of Content Delivery Services

“…However, our profiled model is too complex to be captured by a hard coded, rule-based policy. SONATA-NFV [10] allows service developers to attach code snippets which customise the orchestration to the level of a modular service. Through Function (FSM) and Service Specific Managers (SSM), developers can package their code (including profiled models) as Docker containers and have them executed during the operational runtime of their services.…”

“…Figure 7 shows how the SSM concept relates to the entire architecture of the SONATA-NFV MANO Framework. For more details on this architecture, see [10].…”