The benefits to the mobile industry of virtualization are clear, with a range of major advantages including cost reduction, scalability and the ability to offer a broad range of new services. Wireless Network Functions Virtualization (NFV) is the evolving initiative to deploy the benefits of virtualization already sweeping the IT infrastructure world into wireless networks of all types.
In general, Network Functions Virtualization (NFV) (also known as virtual network function (VNF)) offers a new way to design, deploy and manage networking services. NFV decouples the network functions, such as network address translation (NAT), firewalling, intrusion detection, domain name service (DNS), and caching, to name a few, from proprietary hardware appliances so they can run in software. It allows engineers to replace traditional network devices, such as routers, with software running on commodity servers.
It’s designed to consolidate and deliver the networking components needed to support a fully virtualized infrastructure – including virtual servers, storage, and even other networks. It utilizes standard IT virtualization technologies that run on high-volume service, switch and storage hardware to virtualize network functions. It is applicable to any data plane processing or control plane function in both wired and wireless network infrastructures.
NFV is an overlay; it’s a tunnel. Rather than physically connecting two domains in a network, NFV creates a tunnel through the existing network to connect two domains. NFV is valuable because it saves administrators from having to physically wire up each new domain connection, especially for virtual machines that get created. This is useful because administrators don’t have to change what they have already done. They get a new way to virtualize their infrastructure and make changes on top of an existing infrastructure. NFV runs on high-performance x86 platforms. The goal is to allow people to move VMs independently of their existing infrastructure and not have to reconfigure the network.
For wireless network infrastructures specifically, virtualization allows network functions to be separated from the radio, and run on commodity hardware, including the Cloud. This allows resources to be scaled dynamically according to the number and type of mobile services in use.
This provides a stepping stone to network slicing, which allows virtualized network resources to be readily carved up and assigned on-demand, enabling new wholesale connectivity business models, or multi-operator sharing.
As wireless connectivity demand exceeds the capabilities of current 4G networks, operators are looking to virtualize and centralize base station functions at the wireless network edge. Network functions virtualization (NFV) brings a new architecture — cloud radio access network, or cloud RAN — to the wireless network, which can better adapt to growing bandwidth needs and the variable traffic patterns of mobile devices and new Internet of Things (IoT) applications.
Virtualization of the RAN is more challenging to implement than some early NFV implementations, such as virtual evolved packet core, virtual IP Multimedia Subsystem, virtual customer premise equipment, etc. Centralization of RAN functions will require low-latency, high-bandwidth connections between the cell site and a centralized control point.
For multiple heterogeneous wireless networks, NFV must possess the ability to support several wireless protocols simultaneously, which is challenging because the key technologies and performance parameters among multiple protocols are quite different. Furthermore, the mobile and wireless environment makes the network status ever changing. Correspondingly, it is not a simple task for NFV to dynamically schedule resources, configurations, and protocols.
Isn’t This Just Software Defined Networking?
SDN is an architectural framework for creating intelligent networks that are open, programmable and application aware. NFV is the process of decoupling hardware from software that transforms dedicated network functions into software-based virtualized network functions that can operate in a common, standard, execution environment. SDN uses canned processes to provision the network. For example, instead of building a network tap using an appliance, users should be able to program the network when they want to build a tap.
SDN makes the network programmable by separating the control plane (telling the network what goes where) from the data plane (sending packets to specific destinations). It relies on switches that can be programmed through an SDN controller using an industry standard control protocol, such as OpenFlow.
While NV and NFV add virtual tunnels and functions to the physical network, SDN changes the physical network, and therefore is really a new externally driven means to provision and manage the network. A use case may involve moving a large “elephant flow” from a 1G port to a 10G port, or aggregation of lot of “mice flows” to one 1G port. SDN is implemented on network switches, rather than x86 servers.
Although software defined wireless network and wireless network virtualization are considered as different technologies, they highly complement each other. Over recent years, software defined wireless network (SDWN) has become an emerging and significant research branch of SDN technology.
Consistent with the core idea of SDN, SDWN separates the control plane and the data plane. The network devices, including radio accessing devices, forwarding devices, and etc., have been simplified and behave according to the rules scheduled by the logically centralized control plane. Possessing the global information dynamically reported by the network devices, the control plane allocates the resources, schedules the devices behaviors, and configures the wireless parameters.
The Benefits of Network Functions Virtualization
NFV virtualizes network services via software to enable operators to:
- Reduce CapEx: reducing the need to purchase purpose-built hardware and supporting pay-as-you-grow models to eliminate wasteful over-provisioning.
- Reduce OpEX: reducing space, power and cooling requirements of equipment and simplifying the roll out and management of network services.
- Accelerate Time-to-Market: reducing the time to deploy new networking services to support changing business requirements, seize new market opportunities and improve return on investment of new services. Also lowers the risks associated with rolling out new services, allowing providers to easily trial and evolve services to determine what best meets the needs of customers.
- Deliver Agility and Flexibility: quickly scale up or down services to address changing demands; support innovation by enabling services to be delivered via software on any industry-standard server hardware.
For mobile operators specifically, virtualisation of the mobile core network and IMS enables several advantages. Among the most important are significant TCO savings, efficient allocation of network resources, and increased speed of innovation via efficient deployment of new services.
When increasing capacity or deploying new services, operators can add software-based services to an existing virtualised environment, instead of having to install a new network node. This will save time and money. Virtualisation also creates OpEx/CapEx reduction opportunities, such as lowering power consumption during off-peak times using power management features to power down unneeded portions of the hardware platform or using more off-the-shelf equipment and thus leverage the IT world’s economies of scale.
He is also the inventor of the patented meshDETECT, Secure Prison Cell Phone Solutions.
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