The document discusses the challenges and opportunities of implementing virtual customer premises equipment (v-CPE) in telecommunications, highlighting its benefits such as new revenue streams for service providers and cost savings for enterprises. It addresses key issues including management complexity, performance, and security that need to be resolved to fully realize the potential of v-CPE. Strategies for successful v-CPE deployment are suggested, including NFV acceleration and moving NFV to the network edge.

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VIRTUAL CPE –
CHALLENGES AND
PATHS FORWARD
Hayim Porat
ECI CTO

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NFV PROMISE
 NFV value already proven in
data centers
 Expected to speed past SDN
in terms of CSP network
deployment
 But lot’s remains to be done
NFV
From Gartner Hype Cycle for Communications
Service Provider Infrastructure, August 2015
SDN
Plateau in CSP networks reached in:
2-5 years 5-10 years
Today’s Discussion:
v-CPE use case

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PHYSICAL CPE (P-CPE)
 Network functions for
interworking enterprise
LANs across the WAN
 Demarcation, routing, VPN,
NAT, WAN optimization,
security, etc.
 Implemented physically at
customer premises using
multiple dedicated
appliances
Service Provider or
Cloud NetworkP-CPE

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VIRTUAL CPE (V-CPE) AT
CUSTOMER PREMISES
 Implements physical CPE
functions in software (VNFs) on
a standard commercial server
 Consolidates functionality
facilitating mgmt and upgrades
 Some functions need to
persist in legacy P-CPE
 Does not provide benefits of
cloud-based virtualization
P-CPE
V-CPE
Virtual network
functions (VNFs)
of physical CPE
Service Provider
or Cloud Network

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CLOUD-BASED V-CPE
 VNFs implemented anywhere
between the customer premises
and remote data centers
 Provides cloud implementation
benefits:
 Elastic use of shared
resources
 Statistical multiplexing
 New services models
 Virtualization based on ETSI
NFV framework
P-CPE
V-CPEVirtual network
functions (VNFs)
of physical CPE
Service Provider
or Cloud Network
May be 100’s of km apart

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ANTICIPATED
BENEFITS OF V-CPE
 Service providers – New
revenue streams
 Enterprises – Outsourcing
and simplification
 Other:
 Lower equipment costs
 Eliminate truck rolls
 Best of breed applications
 Customization
 Continuous updates

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YET HEADWINDS
EXIST
 Virtualization issues
• Functional distribution
• Management complexity
 NFV issues
• Performance
• Energy
 Link issues
• Traffic Tromboning
• Security
• Latency

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FUNCTIONAL DISTRIBUTION
NATURAL CUSTOMER PREMISES FUNCTIONS
 Termination point
 Enterprise network monitoring
 L2 forwarding
 Access link encryption
 Ethernet access
 Wireless LAN
 WAN load balancing
 WAN optimizationP-CPE
V-CPE

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V-CPE
Service Provider
or Cloud Network
Routing and
multicast
Session
border control
NAT and/or
DHCP
IPsec Security
(firewalls, DPI,
DDOS, etc)
Configuration
management
Performance
monitoring and
logging
VoIP (PBX)
Value added
business services
Caching
FUNCTIONAL DISTRIBUTION
WAN LOCATABLE FUNCTIONS

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MANY FUNCTIONAL DISTRIBUTION DECISIONS
Service Provider
or Cloud Network
P-CPE
V-CPE V-CPE
WAN Locatable Functions
 Routing and multicast
 Session border control
 NAT and/or DHCP
 L2 and L3 VPN
 IPsec
 Security (firewalls, DPI, DDOS, etc)
 Configuration management
 Performance monitoring and logging
 VoIP (PBX)
 Value added business services
 Caching
Natural Customer Premises Functions
 Termination point
 Enterprise network monitoring
 L2 forwarding
 Access link encryption
 Ethernet access
 Wireless LAN
 WAN load balancing
 WAN optimization
Virtual or physical?
Virtual at CP or
within WAN?

11. Customer
Portal
NFV MANO
EMS
NMS
OSS
Local
Mgmt
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ADD MANAGEMENT COMPLEXITY
Service Provider
or Cloud NetworkP-CPE
V-CPE
V-CPE
WAN Locatable
Functions
Natural Customer
Premises Functions
NFVi
Manager
VNF
Manager
Orches-
trator

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NFV ISSUES
PLATFORM VERSUS APPLIANCE
General purpose vs.
dedicated appliances
Input/output
processing
Power
consumption
 FW throughput
about 10 Gbps
 600W
 FW throughput
60 Gbps
 250W
SW licensing
costs

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CHEAPER YES? BUT HOW MANY
X =?

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BUSINESS CASE CONSIDERATION
COST OF ENERGY
Annual Energy cost (assume 1000 servers)
= 1000 x 0.5kW x $0.1/kWh x 24 x 365
= $0.5M/year
Significant costs moving from
businesses to the carrier
X
=
?

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P-CPE
1. Cleartext
2. Service provider
IPSec Tunnel
4. User’s
encrypted traffic
Service
Provider or
Cloud Network
3. IPsec decryption,
vCPE processing,
User encryption
 vCPE needs cleartext to
process data
 However the medium
between the CP and
cloud is unprotected
 Hence both user
encryption and tunnel
encryption is required
 Doubles processing and
energy costs
LINK ISSUES
V-CPE
V-CPE

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P-CPE
V-CPE
Service Provider
or Cloud Network
V-CPE
 Can occur frequently
• DHCP
• DNS
• AAA
 Creates link congestion
 Can add many 10s of
ms to transactions
LINK ISSUES
TROMBONING AND
LATENCY

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SO HOW DO WE
BEST LAUNCH
THE GOOD SHIP
V-CPE?

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SOME STEPS TO
CONSIDER
 NFV acceleration
 NFV at the network edge
 Hyper-converged cloud

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NFV ACCELERATION
 Supplement NFV for intensive
input/output or other processing
tasks not best suited to general
purpose computing
 Create a hybrid device with best
of both worlds
 Optimize for first cost and
energy costs
 Optional add-on only when
needed

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NFV TO THE NETWORK
EDGE
 Reduces latency
 Limits tromboning to the last
mile
 Also a platform for edge
computing services (e.g.
MEC, IoT, M2M, AR)
Service Provider
or Cloud Network
P-CPE
V-CPE
Move NFV from anywhere in the
network or cloud, to as close as
possible to the network edge
V-CPE
V-CPE

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HYPER CONVERGED
CLOUD
 Strong fit with distributed
network edge computing
 Eases complexity through
local plus hierarchical
management
Servers Storage Network Management Security Facilities Services
Converged Infrastructure
Compute
Storage
Networking
Intelligence
Virtual Machine

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 Multiple platforms for best
application fit
 Neptune packet transport
system integrated blade
 Stand-alone module
 I/O acceleration
 Library of best of breed VNFs
 Fully hyper converged cloud
platform based on
OpenStack
ECI ELASTIC
VIRTUALIZATION
Mercury NFV platforms

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“Simplicity is a great virtue but it requires hard work
to achieve it and education to appreciate it. And to
make matters worse: complexity sells better.”
― Edsger W. Dijkstra

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THANK YOU!
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