Open Source Software development models are changing the way the telco industry is creating products and systems. This presentation at ONS-2015 discusses how innovation, agile development and Open Source Software are linked together.It presents experience with transforming telco vendor development from closed to open source and provides an outlook of future activities in the NFV space.

1. Open Source
Carrier Networking
Dirk Kutscher
Chief Researcher
NEC Laboratories Europe

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Open Source Carrier Networking
▌Different objectives for Open Source projects
1. Disseminate and test new ideas  Research collaboration
2. Validate and demonstrate technology and standards  PoCs
3. Open Source industry platforms  large-scale projects

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NEC – Communications and IT Solutions
▌Cloud Infrastructure
▌Telecom networks and services
▌Leading OpenFlow products
▌World‘s first commercial LTE deployment
▌World‘s first commercial vEPC deployment
▌Linux- (and generally OSS)-based product range

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NEC NFV Solutions History
Linux-based ATCA systems
First-generation of virtualized
systems with proprietary resource
manager
OpenStack-based VIM and
orchestration systems
OPNFV-based solutions

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Requirements from a Telecommunications Perspective
▌General objectives for NFV-based networks
1. Automation (deployment, life-cycle management, elasticity)
2. Flexbility – adding/removing new features fast
3. Cost efficiency (consolidation of functions onto fewer physical boxes)
Specific Requirements
▌ Availability and Fault Management
 Faults can happen
 Detecting root-causes reliably and react quickly
 Minimizing downtime
▌ Performance
 Balance virtualization with optimal resource usage
▌ Multi-domain operation
 Extending NFV domains across DC boundaries

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Previous Development Cycle
Customer Requirements Development Product Release

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Open Source, Open Loop
Requirements & Blueprints Artifacts Release
Testing

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Experience: Development
▌Modularity in OSS projects
 Designed for multi-partner collaboration and extensibility
 Component-based architectures, well-defined APIs
 Large active communities  dynamic system
▌Example: NEC NFV OpenStack development
 NEC extension modules for NFV use cases and requirements
 Development (including research and QA) completed in 8 months
▌Lesson: Flexibility, modular design a key enabler for fast
customization and extension

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Experience: Troubleshooting NFV
▌NEC telco support business
 Strong (legal) requirements for high availability
 Root cause analysis for effective fault management
 NFV: high degree of consolidation makes this difficult
▌Example: service outage in customer network
 Network service application failure
 Reproduced problem locally and identified bug by adding diagnostics into
 KVM/qemu
▌Lesson: White box (OSS) approach enables effective debugging and
hardening of critical systems

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Experience: Paddling Upstream
▌From adaptation to upstream integration
 First generation of OSS-based products were based on many specific
features, proprietary extensions
 Doable for single development – not maintainable in the long run
▌Upstream first instead of forking and expensive re-integration
 NEC develops use cases, requirements and feature designs
 Close collaboration with partners to integrate features in a timely manner
 We (and rest of the industry) can leverage those features in products
▌Lesson: Minimize development and maintenance cost
by upstream first approach

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Current Work: Transport-SDN with ONOS
Flexible and easy-to-use multi-layer/multi-domain/multi-device view/control of
transport network which consists of legacy and pure-SDN domains
Packet-transport
domain
Optical network
domain
Mobile backhaul
domain
OpenFlow
domain
OpenFlow
domain
OpenFlow
domain
ODENOS (Network abstraction)
ONOS
ONOS ONOS
NMS
NMS
NMS
OpenFlow
domain
ONOS
Leveraging high
performance and
scalability
Global/Local view
& control
Customer-domain
view & control
Protocol layer
view & control
Optical driver
Mobile backhaul
driver
Packet-transport
driver
ONOS driver
Inter-domain path
restoration

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Outlook: OpenFlow in Carrier Networks
▌After first wave of NFV-based softwarization, we see more demand
for true Software-Defined Networking
 Commoditizing forwarding elements further
 Enhanced programmability and proper policy abstractions
▌New abstractions and
programmability models
for OpenFlow
▌Powerful policy
frameworks
▌Network redesign

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