Telco operators are on journey to discover what virtualization means for the network. Markets have believed that NFV architecture elements: NFVI and VIM, hold the complete responsibility in providing virtualized networks with carrier grade properties. Telco operators have reached to a conclusion that VNFs must take their fair share of responsibility to realize NFV goals while meeting carrier-grade behavior in the entire NFV architecture. While the trend moves on, Cloud native VNFs are emerging best citizens of the cloud. Thus communication from EMS to VNFM is blurred and eventually may disappear in the future. This requires better understanding of, and agreement over the role of VNFMs and EMS for VNFs. This presentation describes the evolution of Distributed VNF management, Architectural design considerations and Use-case scenarios. The following proposal is based on a comprehensive study on evolving cloud native VNF management.

2. Distributed VNF Management
Architecture and Use cases
Sridhar Pothuganti
Trinath Somanchi
INDIA

3. Session Outline
• NFV - Benefits
• NFV deployment models.
• Role of VNF Manager.
• Understanding em-vnf-vnfm
• Future VNFs.
• VNF Management – Tomorrow
• Distributed VNF Management – Overview.
• State and Operational Flow.
• Benefits and Use-cases

4. NFV - Benefits
Reduced operator CAPEX and OPEX through reduced equipment costs
and reduced power consumption
Reduced time-to-market to deploy new network services
Improved return on investment from new services
Greater flexibility to scale up, scale down or evolve services
Openness to the virtual appliance market and pure
software entrants
Opportunities to trial and deploy new innovative
services at lower risk
Network Function Virtualization – Benefits

5. Evolving Telco needs
1900-1990s
1960-2000s
2000-2010s
Today
Future
Time 
Value
Physical
(Copper/Fiber/Radio)
Physical
(Copper/Fiber/Radio)
Physical
(Copper/Fiber/Radio)
Physical
(Copper/Fiber/Radio)
Physical
(Copper/Fiber/Radio)
Voice Voice Voice Voice Voice
SMS SMS
Data (Internet/IP)
SMS SMS
Data (Internet/IP) Data (Internet/IP)
Distributed Telco
Cloud
Centralized Platforms
PaaS, IaaS etc..
Service/Content
SaaS
Centralized Platforms
PaaS, IaaS etc..
Service/Content
SaaS

6. NFV Deployment Models
VNFVNFVNF
Customer Premises
CSP Network
CSP PoP (CO/DC)
Virtual Network Functions located at CSP PoP
Centralized Model
• All Virtualized functionality located at CSPs PoP (DC/CO).
• VNFs deployed using existing networks.
• Carrier Ethernet is ideal for providing access to centralized
VNFs from the customer premises
• Basic Switch/Router at the customer premises.
• Heavy reliability on the cloud and network performance.
Customer Premises CSP Network
Virtual Network Functions located at Customer Premises
Decentralized Model
VNFVNFVNF
Customer Premises
VNFVNFVNF
• All Virtualized functionality located at Customer Premises.
• Requires augmenting CP equipment.
• No VNFs in the Data center.
• Facilitates traffic handling and offloading to hardware-based
processing.
VNFVNF
Customer Premises
CSP Network
CSP PoP (CO/DC)
Virtual Network Functions distributed between
Customer premises and CSP PoP
Distributed Model
VNFVNFVNF
• Network functionality distributed between CSP’s PoP and
CPE.
• VNFs can be deployed based on optimal feasibility,
performance, reliability, scalability and cost
considerations.
• VNFs can be dynamically ordered, configured and chained
as per the requirement.
Distributed Model – (Edge NFV)
VNFVNF
CSP Network
CSP PoP (CO/DC)
Virtual Network Functions distributed between Customer premises, Gateways/Aggregation points and CSP PoP
Customer Premises
VNFVNFVNF
• Network functionality distributed between CSP’s PoP, Cloud edge and
CPE.
• Extending Multi-DC management to address many small "DC"
locations.
Customer Premises
VNFVNFVNF
Aggregation Network Edge
VNFVNFVNF

7. Role of VNF Manager
Instantiate
Scale
Scale VNF
to level
Change
VNF Flavor
TerminateQuery VNF
Heal VNF
Operate
VNF
Modify
VNF
Virtual
Network
Function
• VNF Instantiation and Termination.
• Monitoring Health and Performance
indicators.
• Scaling and healing.
• Interface to Vendor specific EMS.
• VNF Image update management.
• Manage group of VNFCs belonging to the
same VNF instance.
VNF Managers are seen tightly coupled with other MANO components. But they are intended to be loosely coupled and have
distributed implementation scope.
Reference: [ETSI GS NFV-IFA 008 V2.1.1 (2016-10)] Network Functions Virtualisation (NFV); Management and Orchestration; Ve-Vnfm reference point - Interface and Information Model Specification

8. Understanding em-vnf-vnfm
• Element Management System (EMS) manages the VNFs in co-ordination with
VNFM.
• Ve-Vnfm-em – Provides the Interface for EMS to support various operations
(LCM, Fault, Performance, Configuration etc..) produced by VNFM.
• EMS are specific to the VNFs and are provided by VNF vendors.
• EMS act as VNF specific managers by supporting various operations from
VNFM.
• Ve-Vnfm-Vnf – Provides interface for VNF to support various operations
produced by VNFM.
• Provides a direct communication to VNF management.
Reference: [ETSI GS NFV-IFA 008 V2.1.1 (2016-10)] Network Functions Virtualisation (NFV); Management and Orchestration; Ve-Vnfm reference point - Interface and Information Model Specification
While VNF Centric management approach is a required, VNFMs can take fair share in managing VNFs. Moving forward, VNFMs
will need to manage multi vendor VNFs. Standardized specification is still in literature.
VNFM
EMS VNF
Ve-Vnfm-em Ve-Vnfm-vnf
ElementManagementSystem
VirtualNetwork
Function

9. Future VNFs
Containerized VNFs
• Reduced Overhead
Microservices,
• which enables service
composability, reusability,
efficient scaling and ease of
deployment
Stateless processing
• Makes cloud VNFs fault
tolerant and scalable without
notional limits – Application
isolated from state.
Easy Orchestration
• VNFs are designed to
minimize the amount of
configuration needed in each
component.
Monolithic VNF
•VNF combined with all
the
components
Minimal Reuse
•VNFC level re-usability is
minimal or no
Stateful
•The states are tightly
coupled with the packet
processing unit itself,
Orchestration
•VNF orchestration is
dependent on VNF
Complexity.
CN-VNFVNF

10. VNF Manager - Tomorrow
Today … Tomorrow..
VNF Management Centralized Distributed NFV, Edge NFV is evolving. VNF
management must change scope.
VNF/EMS/VNFM from single providers Complex decomposed VNFCs from multiple
providers
EMS to manage VNFs EMS based VNF management faded. VNFMs
to managed decomposed shared VNF(C)s.
Security management centralized Distributed Security management - VNF and
NS centric.
Intelligent VNFs – Still in literature Intelligent VNFs – a Reality
With the adoption of VNF decomposition to microservices and evolving Telco needs, Cloud Edge and
Customer premises equipment management requires localized control for low latency and Service agility.
This expands the view of VNF management.

11. Distributed VNF Management
Core DC
VNFVNFVNF
VNFVNFVNF
VNFVNFVNF
VNFVNFVNF
VNFVNFVNF
VNFVNFVNF
VNFVNFVNF
VNFVNFVNF
VNFVNFVNF
VNFVNFVNF
VNFVNFVNF
VNFVNFVNF
VNFVNFVNF
VNFVNFVNF
VNFVNFVNF
VNFVNFVNF
VNFVNFVNF
VNFVNFVNF
VNFVNFVNF VNFVNFVNF
CSP Network
vEdge
vEdge
vEdge
VNFVNFVNF
Mini DC
NFVI PoP
vCPEvCPE
vCPE
vBranch
vCPE
vCPE
VNFVNFVNF
VNFVNFVNF
vCPE
D-VNF-M
D-VNF-M
D-VNF-M
D-VNF-M
D-VNF-M
VNFVNFVNF
VNFVNFVNF
vCPE
VNFVNFVNF
VNFVNFVNF
vCPE
VNFVNFVNF
VNFVNFVNF
Centralized Orchestration D-VNF Management
Mini DC
NFVI PoP
Centralize what you can.. Distribute what you must…

12. D-VNFM - Architecture
D-VNFM
Data analytics/Learning Interface
Resourcemgmt.Interface
(Vi-Vnfm)
Fault Management Interface
Config Management Interface
Security Management Interface
Performance Management interface
Orchestration.Interface
(Or-Vnfm)
VNF LCM/Elastic Interface (Ve-Vnfm-vnf)
Localized Policy Store Localized Key Store
Light weight
VNF Manager
Localized VNF
management.
Logical Zone –
Security
management.
Integration to
external
applications.
VNFC specific
FCPS
management

13. VNF LCM/Elastic
Interface (ve-
Vnfm)
Basic VNF lifecycle
management, On-
demand scale
in/out and auto-
healing of VNFs.
Resource
Management
Interface (Vi-Vnfm)
Store and provide
VNF deployment
specific resource
information (Faulty
resource,
Performance
metric, Resource
reservation)
Orchestration
interface (Or-
Vnfm)
As Generic VNFM,
communicates with
NFVO for on-
demand resource
allocation and VNF
specific
requirements
Distributed Policy
Store
Stores the Flow,
security policy,
healing and
monitoring policies
and performance
upgrade rules.
Distributed Key
Store
Stores the key and
certificates
required for
cryptography.
FCPS Management
Interface
VNFC Centric FCPS
management.
Data
analytics/Learning
interface
Provision external
data/machine
learning systems
and query policies
to enable intelligent
VNFs (means to
self-auto-scale and
self-auto-heal
provided VNF
supports additional
functionality
inclusion).
D-VNFM – Functional Blocks

14. Authorized Agent VNFs NFVODistributed VNFM VIM External Apps
1. VNF Instantiation
1.1 Grant Lifecycle Operation 1.2 Check Policies
and Resource
Availability
1.3 Resource Reservation
1.4 Resource Reservation
Response1.5 Ack
1.6 Allocate Resources
1.7 Ack : Allocate Resource
1.8 Configure VNF
1.10 VNF Created
1.9 Notify VNF Instantiated
2. Monitor VNF 2.2 Data Analytics/ML data
2.1 Stats feed to External Apps
2.3 Advice for VNF improvement
3. Prediction as scaling required
3.1 Grant LCO(scale, Bulk) 3.2 Check Policies
and Resource
Availability
3.3 Resource Reservation
3.4 Resource Reservation
Response
3.5 Ack (scale, bulk)
6.6 Allocate Resources
3.7 Ack : Allocate Resource
3.8 Configure VNF
3.9 Notify Resources Utilized
3.10 Notify VNF Scaled
Operational Flow 1/2
VNFInstantiationVNFImproveVNFScale

15. VNFs NFVODistributed VNFM VIM External Apps
51. Notify performance
measurement results
Security Engine
6.2 VNF Stats feed to External Apps
4.1 VNF Fault
4.2 Trigger
Corrective Action4.3 VNF Corrective
Action
4.4 VNF Fault Notification
5.2 Contraction Required
5.3 Graceful
termination of VNFC 5.4 Release Resources
5.5 Ack : Release Resource
5.6 Notify Resources Utilized
5.7 Notify VNF Update
6.3 VNF vulnerability patch fix
required6.4 update VNF with
vulnerability patches
6.1 update VNF status
Operational Flow 2/2VNFFaultManagementVNFPerformanceManagementVNFSecurity
Management

16. D-VNF Management
State transitions
(S1) NULL
(S2) On-Boarding
(S3) Instantiate
(S4) Configure/Halt
/Reboot
(S5) Active/Started
(S6) Halted
S1-T1) On-Boarding VNF
S2-T1) Instantiate
S3-T1) Scale in/Out S4-T1) Configure
S4-T1) Scale In/Out
S4-T2) Update
S5-T1) Scale in/Out
Instantiation state Configuration state Ready state
S5-T3) Security Config
S5-T5) Perf Config
S5-T6) Perf mgmt
D-VNF management aligns with VNFM for all state transitions. But is specific to VNF, Localized administrative zone

17. Customer Edge Device
Management
Diagram Source: http://www.nxp.com/assets/documents/data/en/supporting-information/DN-Digital%20Networking%20solution-2017.pdf
CED is the first entry point from the end-user/subscriber to
connect to a network and subscribe a specific service.
Legacy CED, are deeply hardware and software coupled and
recently IPTV, VOIP, remote storage was introduced making
CEDs more sophisticated.
Today CEDs are made more intelligent with NFV, there by
dynamically provision new services into CEDs.
D-VNFM is a best fit solution to provision, manage and monitor
VNFs with improved service security, reliability and proactive
resource management.
Since IoT is moving fast in residential market, DVNFM can
improve overall deployment flexibility and generate potential
benefits to the complete ecosystems

18. Intelligent VNF
With advent of data analytics and machine learning it’s
possible to foresee the improvements needed to
manage the networks with experience from existing
data.
This requires a local management of VNFs and their
underlying networks and infrastructures.
Distributed management of VNFs using analytical tools
paves a new path for sophisticated and intelligent
management of resource.
This helps improve fault tolerance, better availability
and resiliency at complete infrastructure.
Since VNFs are split into fine granular VNFCs
integration with Data Analytics/learning systems will
surely benefit the ecosystem.

19. D-VNFM - Benefits
✓Efficient, localized and unique services for VNFs
✓Managing different VNFs from different VNF vendors
✓VNFC and Network Service Centric Security
management.
✓VNF management in and across trust domains.
✓Using DA/ML for effective utilization of VNFs and
resources
✓Fast instantiation and increase resource utilization
✓Agile VNF software upgrade
✓Addressing E2E automation
Improved
Fault
Management
Security
Hardened VNFs
Speedy
Configuration
Management
Data Analysis
and learning
– On the Fly
VNF Centric
Resilient
environment
Improved VNF
Elasticity
Quality
assurance –
Economics -

20. Future work
• Detailed Design and architecture.
• PoC with ETSI proposed use-cases.
• API definitions and Communication end point design.
• Plugin architecture for External app integration.
• Realizing with OpenStack modules.

21. That’s all folks.
For Questions/Discussion
Sridhar Pothuganti
Email: sridhar.pothuganti@nxp.com
IRC : SridharP
Trinath Somanchi
Email: trinath.Somanchi@nxp.com
IRC : trinaths
Thank you all.