While little discussed, there is a solid case in placing some VNFs at the edge of the network, but this notion implies a distributed model that VNFs were not originally created to address. One of the problems in placing VNFs at the network edge is that the edge equipment may be very cost sensitive and in many cases, consumer grade. These consumer-grade devices cannot support a virtual container such as a KVM because of the huge memory requirements of an additional OS. A Docker container has been proposed and implemented with great success.

1. Disposable Containers
at the Edge
Michael Kloberdans
CableLabs

2. Where exactly is “The Edge”
Distributed VNFs will
eventually move into
the Home Gateway

3. Where is your Edge?
• SDN/NFV discussions have mainly focused
at the Main or Regional Data Center
• Recently, the “Edge” represents the ISP
premise location closest to the home, user,
consumer, device, etc.
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4. The ISP Data Center
• Data Centers consist of a myriad of servers
that are geographically close.
• This facilitates control by the ISP
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5. The Enterprise Data Center
• Enterprises also use data centers, but a smaller footprint
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6. Home – the “Anti” Data Center
• Orchestration software was never meant to scale
from thousands of servers to millions of homes
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7. But VNFs can reside in any cloud – even the home!
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ISP
Cloud
Home
Cloud

8. VNFs – Why in the home?
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Why
in
the
home?
-­‐
WAN
Fault
-­‐
Performance
-­‐
Reduce
Traffic

9. Introduction to Profiles
A new paradigm

10. Home – the “Anti” Data Center
• Orchestration software will change from data
center orchestrators to ‘profiles’ or ‘templates’
• These standard profiles can remove the need for
SFC (Service Function Chaining) because the
home has simpler needs.
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11. Home Profiles
• Imagine a home profile with two VNFs:
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FW-­‐1
FW-­‐2
PC-­‐4
PC-­‐3
FW-­‐3
PC-­‐1
PC-­‐2
PC-­‐5
PC-­‐6
FW-­‐5
FW-­‐4
FW-­‐4
PC-­‐2
Template
#17

12. Why is the home of such interest?
• Competition to control the home is just beginning
to appear.
– Google’s OnHub ( 4GB storage )
– Amazon’s Alexa ( Records your commands )
– Google’s NEST ( Tunnels back to Google )
– Apple’s Home Design Kit ( IoT Control )
– Smart Phone Apps ( Acts as a TV Remote)
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13. The home will be the focus of many ISPs
• Superior information with customer actions
– Incredibly rich user data on habits, not just opinions
– Amazingly complete meta data from all home devices
– Not just usage:
• Time-based usage
• Location-based usage
• Features-based usage
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14. A Case for Disposable VNFs
Mission Impossible

15. VNFs can reside in any cloud – even the home!
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Why
in
the
home?
-­‐
WAN
Fault
-­‐
Performance
-­‐
Reduce
Traffic
-­‐
Link
Metrics

16. A case for “Disposable Containers”
• An ISP may want to measure their link to the home
– Latency values
– Jitter values
– Packet loss values
– QoE voice metrics
• Echo
• Background noise
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17. A case for “Disposable VNFs”
• Having a “NID” permanently installed is needless,
consumes resources and adds to the cost of the
home gateway
• Sending VNFs to the Home Gateway could be the
answer
• VNFs would “self destruct” when an appropriate
trigger event occurs
• This relieves the orchestrator from managing and
removing potentially millions of distributed VNFs
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18. A case for “Disposable Containers”
• Event triggers could include:
– Time
Limit, such as a TTL counter that counts down
seconds
– Usage
Limit counts down for every external request
is received
– Usage
Limit counts down each time an internal VNF
action happens
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19. Summary
VNFs in the home
Profiles for the home
Disposable VNFs

20. Summary to this Introduction of Concepts
• We’ve seen that the edge is moving to the home
• There is keen interest with user habits in the home
• Current Orchestrators cannot scale to the needs of a
fully distributed home edge (anti-data center)
• Some VNFs are appropriate to reside on the home
gateway
• There is a need for transient VNFs to self-destruct
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