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FierceWireless.com 12 11 M AY 2 0 14 M AY 2 0 14 FierceWireless NFV & SDN address different issue in the network but are linked because they both share the same goals. Ever since Network Functions Virtualization (NFV) was formally endorsed by a group of carriers at the SDN & OpenFlow World Congress event in October 2012, it's been "game on" for Software-Defined Networks (SDN) and NFV, and the two seem to be inextricably linked forever. To be sure, they each address different issues in the network. SDN deals with the abstraction of the control plane from the data plane, while "NFV is about moving into software network functions that today run in dedicated hardware," explains Christos Kolias, ETSI NFV ISG member participant and liason between the ETSI NFV ISG and Open Networking Foundation (ONF). "But both share the same of similar goals, ranging from introducing more agility, elasticity and automation to the acceleration of the innovation pace and time to market and even the empowerment of the administrator," he said. MOVING FORWARD Both are moving on a fast track, which is a relative term but one that's changing its meaning in the telecom world is changing. Since that group of operators released the first NFV white paper, they created the NFV Industry Specification Group (NFV ISG), which met for the first time in January 2013. The group has grown to more than 150 companies, including 28 service providers. The NFV ISG published its first documents after 10 months of intensive work; a further release is expected in the second half of 2014. "We have a very ambitious release plan," said Diego Lopez, ETSI NFV ISG technical manager. The NFV ISG is expected to sunset in January 2015, just two years after the first meeting. SDN & NFV: Two Great Things That Go Great Together? BY MONIC A A L L E V E N From a technical point of view, some of the network challenges that need to be overcome before jumping head-on into implementing NFV include integration and co-existence with installed hardware equipment; standardization of interfaces between NFV architectural blocks; alignment with OSS/BSS; carrier-grade scaling; and the ability to build new NFV-oriented apps, according to Kolias. Such challenges are not show-stoppers, he is quick to add, but starting points for more innovation. Kolias, for one, said he would like to see more "out-of-the-box thinking" in the industry. From a business standpoint, operators need to build the necessary business cases to justify and prioritize the actual deployment of NFV solutions in their networks, and that's a very operator-specific function. They also need to make strategic decisions on where, when and how to deploy NFV, he said, and they likely might need a change in culture. Some operators already are inviting employees to explore retraining programs. MORE THAN A ONE- GROUP EFFORT The Alliance for Telecommuni- cations Industry Solutions (ATIS) launched its Software-Defined Networking/Network Functions Virtualization Focus Group in January 2014. It has plans to demonstrate service chaining of hardware/NFV appliances using SDN concepts, which involves developing application interface APIs and OAM interface APIs for service chaining in an OpenStack and OpenDaylight framework. "The way we look at it is SDN is a specific capability within the programmable environment," said Andrew White, vice president for technology and standards at ATIS. There are specific activities going on with SDN in, for example, the Open Daylight Project, a vendor-driven effort to facilitate a framework for a common SDN platform. "It's really more of a solution that can be used to control different network functions. NFV is more of a methodology and architecture for the implementation of virtualization." While both Open Daylight and Open Stack already are providing deployable SDN code, NFV is still in the "getting-to-know- you" phase. "We've been virtualizing functions for a long time, but NFV virtualizes those functions in a specific manner using a common framework, so they're going through how the functions work, defining interfaces," White said. COST SAVINGS VS. AGILITY While operators have identified savings in opex and capex as drivers toward SDN/NFV, the ability to reap new revenue from new services is another motivator. But which one of those three is the greatest overriding motivator is subject to debate. Steve Shaw, director of marketing/ mobile at Juniper Networks, said the primary benefit he hears in meetings with service provider customers is the desire to add agility and the ability to make changes to their network and services more quickly so they can roll out new services. "It's really not about cap-ex savings. They do hope that there's some operational savings that come from this," he said. Carriers want the automation that gives them the ability to make changes faster, but they can't all move as fast as they'd like. "The way we look at it is SDN is a specific capability within the programmable environment." ANDREW WHITE, VICE PRESIDENT FOR TECHNOLOGY AND STANDARDS AT ATIS

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