Introduction The big innovation trend in network design is Network Functions Virtualisation (NFV), which offers better ways of managing and controlling networks. The highest levels of capital expenditure (CAPEX) and operating expenses (OPEX) utilisation can be achieved with virtualisation, offering functionality which can be organised and load balanced according to demand. Orchestration and Software Definable Network Control (SDN) are fundamental technologies to this architecture, but the current requirements and the future vision of networks are arguably so demanding that it requires more than the vanilla SDN solutions available in the market today. This white paper outlines the shape of the industry from a range of perspectives, identifies the technological gaps in the area of network infrastructure virtualisation that are not currently addressed by any existing off- the-shelf technologies, and demonstrates how Zeetta Networks delivers a complete end-to-end solution. BEYOND VANILLA SOLUTIONS: THE NEXT GENERATION OF NETWORK COMMODITISATION +44 (0)117 344 5304 [email protected]www.zeetta.com WHITE PAPER Open Technology Network operators are demanding network infrastructure control and management solutions that enable them to be vendor agnostic and avoid vendor lock-in. They would like to deploy an ecosystem where they can mix and match different technologies from different vendors across their infrastructure footprint. To achieve this, open standard solutions are increasingly becoming important for network operators. At the moment, there are very limited options for a commercial/carrier grade open standards- based network controller that can manage and orchestrate network services end-to-end across optical, wireless and packet transport technologies. The majority of existing solutions focus on specific technologies and predominately on packet switching networks. Zeetta Networks’ open standards and open platforms approach to SDN, meeting the demands of operators, carriers and enterprises alike for open innovation, will help to untangle them from the existing supply chain.
Transcript
Introduction The big innovation trend in network design is Network Functions Virtualisation (NFV), which offers better ways of managing and controlling networks. The highest levels of capital expenditure (CAPEX) and operating expenses (OPEX) utilisation can be achieved with virtualisation, offering functionality which can be organised and load balanced according to demand.
Orchestration and Software Definable Network Control (SDN) are fundamental technologies to this architecture, but the current requirements and the future vision of networks are arguably so demanding that it requires more than the vanilla SDN solutions available in the market today.
This white paper outlines the shape of the industry from a range of perspectives, identifies the technological gaps in the area of network infrastructure virtualisation that are not currently addressed by any existing off-the-shelf technologies, and demonstrates how Zeetta Networks delivers a complete end-to-end solution.
Open TechnologyNetwork operators are demanding network infrastructure control and management solutions that enable them to be vendor agnostic and avoid vendor lock-in. They would like to deploy an ecosystem where they can mix and match different technologies from different vendors across their infrastructure footprint. To achieve this, open standard solutions are increasingly becoming important for network operators. At the moment, there are very limited options for a commercial/carrier grade open standards-based network controller that can manage and orchestrate network services end-to-end across optical, wireless and packet transport technologies. The majority of existing solutions focus on specific technologies and predominately on packet switching networks.
Zeetta Networks’ open standards and open platforms approach to SDN, meeting the demands of operators, carriers and enterprises alike for open innovation, will help to untangle them from the existing supply chain.
Zeetta Networks, 1 Friary, Bristol BS1 6EA, UK | Tel +44 (0)117 344 5304 | Email [email protected] | www.zeetta.com
For further information, please see www.zeetta.com or email us at [email protected].
Beyond vanilla solutions: the next generation of network commoditisation
5 perspectives on the shape of the industry now 1. TCP/IP perspective: The internet’s hierarchy and interconnections of networks, which carry the traffic from the data-centre to devices, are on the whole provisioned ineffectively. Given the opportunity, TCP/IP will always seek to consume the entire capacity available.
There are partial solutions to this; from the rather blunt rules-based traffic throttling functions in routers (now content and application-aware) to proxies which artificially terminate the TCP/IP session and optimise and reconstruct the HTTP datagram reducing entire web pages.
These approaches are challenged by the increasingly stringent privacy and network neutrality policies. Network protocols such as Diff-Serv do exist whereby packets can be tagged with Quality of Service (QoS), but on the whole, implementations rarely work end-to-end over the Internet’s network of networks topology.
2. Infrastructure optimisation: With the rise of on-demand streaming services (Netflix) and VR/AR gaming, networks become stressed in terms of bandwidth (BW) and delay, with a huge need for optimisation. Currently, network services for such applications are provided at layer 3 (IP) and often over-provisioned at layer 2 and/or optical connectivity without any cross-optimisation.
This leads to a significantly underutilised network and more expensive network services for applications and users. There is a gap for provisioning that utilises a cross-layer solution in order to optimise network services from layer 3 down to the optical layer for individual applications or services. This can potentially improve the utilisation of existing infrastructure for operators, increasing their revenue margin.
3. An optical infrastructure as a service: The future of the internet is characterised by the global delivery of high-performance network-based applications, such as 5G, over a high-capacity dynamic network. Dedicated optical network services are needed to meet the requirements for high capacity, low latency, and deterministic QoS. However, as these types of applications evolve, the current technical and operational complexities as well as CAPEX and OPEX considerations will limit the ability of network operators to set up and configure a dedicated network for each application in a scalable manner.
An Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) framework is a key enabler to address this challenge. By adopting IaaS framework and its key technology enabler, Network Virtualisation, network operators are able to partition their physical infrastructures into virtual networks, based on user/application requirements, and offer them as infrastructure services to users.
4. A cloud perspective: Compute and server virtualisation technologies are the main technology enablers behind successful cloud computing and cloud-based services. These technologies allow compute resources to be sliced into virtual machines for hosting applications and services independent of the underlying hardware. It is expected that telecoms network infrastructure can also benefit from slicing and virtualisation in a similar way to the data centre and compute infrastructures.
The concept of ‘virtual network’ as a service or network slice as service heralds a future of XaaS (Anything as a Service). However this cannot be realised yet, because currently there is no network slicing technology that is as comprehensive, as flexible and as efficient as the current compute slicing technologies
5. The sharing economics perspective: One of the biggest challenges of new networking technologies and their generations are the economics of backwards compatibility, which always results in increasing operational complexity and increasing infrastructure deployment costs. This is intensified in the case of 5G where the need to densify the existing radio station infrastructure poses major logistical problems to networks operators to find the spaces to install the new radios / cell sites.
Infrastructure sharing then becomes paramount. This model allows for infrastructure owners outside of the telecoms market, such as those in local government, to adopt a new role in providing new spaces and infrastructure for telecoms service providers to share and deliver services at a fraction of the cost of deploying and integrating new infrastructures.
Zeetta Networks, 1 Friary, Bristol BS1 6EA, UK | Tel +44 (0)117 344 5304 | Email [email protected] | www.zeetta.com
For further information, please see www.zeetta.com or email us at [email protected].
What are the technology gaps and solutions? Network slicing, which enables partitioning of a network into multiple application/service-specific and customised virtual networks without significant investment or change in the physical infrastructure, is commonly referred to as virtualisation by the telecoms industry.
Today’s virtualisation products and services are in general limited to transport, and are based on VPN (Virtual Private Network) services. Currently, operators do not believe the existing SDN control architecture is future-proofed or meets the needs of their network virtualisation roadmap.
After laying out the perspectives from the industry, let’s move to analyse the particular technological issues in more detail and demonstrate how Zeetta Networks is solving them one by one to create a complete solution.
Zeetta Networks is innovatingOperators and infrastructure owners implement network virtualisation either at layer 2 or layer 3 without any coordination between the two layers. All existing claims (e.g. recent ADVA and Lumina demos) simply provide virtualisation at layer 2 or 3 and map it into an optical layer on dedicated wavelength or fibre (over-provisioning) resulting in sub-optimal utilisation of the optical capacity. Currently, there is no virtualisation technology on the market except Zeetta Networks’ that supports optical layer virtualisation.
There is also a technology gap for a PLA-aware (physical layer impairments) optical network virtualisation mechanism capable of creating multiple coexisting VONs (Voice on the Net), each with its own network topology and QoS requirements. Therefore network operators have to consider a high safety margin around the spectrum of their operational optical channels. This, together with over-provisioning, is resulting in underutilisation and spectrum fragmentation of the network. Zeetta Networks’ patented optical virtualisation technology fills this gap.
Beyond vanilla solutions: the next generation of network commoditisation
Figure 1: Open network commoditisation model based on Zeetta’s NetOS® programmable network infrastructure platform.
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There is a gap for cross-technology layer optimisation of virtual networks, either vertically (across multiple technology layers in the same autonomous domain) or horizontally (across different autonomous domains each with different network technology). As the number of co-existing virtual networks increases, the result is an even greater sub-optimal utilisation of the optical capacity. Also, virtual operations face huge barriers to federate their infrastructures to extend their service reach and improve penetration. This is primarily constrained by the big infrastructure owners to prevent competition at scale. Zeetta Networks’ virtualisation solution effectively addresses this gap by providing splicing of slices across multiple network domains as well across multiple technology layers.
Existing network virtualisation offerings from operators require advanced planning. Implementing each virtual network request is usually based on VPN technology and is a time-consuming and labour-intensive process. These contracts are generally long-term and operators cannot offer a pay-as-you-use option for virtual network customers. Filling this gap could potentially allow small size infrastructure providers/operators, such as CityFibre, to compete with big operators. Zeetta Networks’ virtualisation technology provides cross-layer virtualisation so that virtual networks can be re-planned on demand and without interruption of services.
There is no existing solution that allows the operation of a virtual network comprising multiple nodes, or one that allows a customer to control their own virtual network. This becomes a pressing need with the rapid growth of content providers (e.g. Netflix) and virtual operators, fixed or mobile, (e.g. TalkTalk or Tesco Mobile). Zeetta Networks’ unique virtualisation technology enables a tenant to create a complex virtual network and fully control it.
With existing virtualisation technologies, it is often very costly, difficult or even impossible to reconfigure existing virtual networks in an operational infrastructure. This leads to inefficient utilisation of network infrastructure resources as the number of virtual networks increases. There is no optimisation solution which can maintain service levels and re-plan existing virtual networks as new ones are added or removed. Zeetta Networks’ unique virtual network optimisation tactics can address this gap.
The current internet wholesale market is a two-tier market. Big infrastructure owners/operators (e.g. BT, Interoute) can utilise virtualisation technologies to create virtual infrastructures for virtual operators (e.g. TalkTalk or Tesco Mobile). However, currently, there is no virtualisation technology that allows big virtual operators to further virtualise their own virtual infrastructure and offer it as a service to smaller/regional virtual operators. Zeetta Networks’ unique recursive virtualisation technology addresses this gap.
Pay-as-you-use and on-demand virtual networks will be the future defacto service from telecom infrastructure operators. We can envision a user creating an end-to-end virtual network over the infrastructure of multiple operators and choosing the preferred operator based on available options. In these scenarios, there is a need for an automated contracting mechanism that allows resources to be exposed and booked amongst infrastructure operators and also between users and operators. Zeetta Networks’ technology is essential for a viable pay-as-you-use and on-demand virtual network provisioning solutions to meet the vision of many operators and 5G in particular.
With the emergence of 5G verticals with stringent latency and bandwidth requirements, the NFV orchestrator will need to closely coordinate with the network assets underneath in order to meet latency and bandwidth requirements. Currently, there is no NFV orchestration solution with the capability to coordinate with the underlying network infrastructure at the physical layer. Zeetta Networks’ virtualisation technology can create network slices that are optimised for bandwidth and delay requirements of NFVs.
Beyond vanilla solutions: the next generation of network commoditisation
Zeetta Networks, 1 Friary, Bristol BS1 6EA, UK | Tel +44 (0)117 344 5304 | Email [email protected] | www.zeetta.com
For further information, please see www.zeetta.com or email us at [email protected].
What is NetOS®?NetOS® is a programmable network infrastructure platform that contains a powerful SDN controller with some orchestration capabilities, based on open standards and compliant with MEF LSO 3.0 architecture. It enables network and service architects to deliver the full vision of an application-aware network like 5G at the lowest possible marginal cost and at the highest levels of network CAPEX and OPEX utilisation. Its unique capabilities include:
l Slicing: Multi-technology and cross-layer virtualisation utilising patents of Zeetta Networks
l Splicing: Orchestration and tactical splicing of virtual networks across multiple technology domains and technology layers (stitching them together). This also includes splicing virtual networks for specific VNFs (5G VNFs)
l Smart Contract: An automated mechanism based on a patented blockchain solution for exchange and reservation of resources for creating a virtual network across multiple operators’ infrastructure.
The complete solution: Zeetta Networks Zeetta Networks’ NetOS® platform has been developed to fully address all of these technological gaps. Spun out from Bristol University’s High Performance Networks Labs and based on patented IP, it has continued to innovate and build its patent portfolio with key patents in network slicing, network splicing, and blockchain.
Zeetta Networks’ SDN Control, Virtualisation and Orchestration (based on open standards and platforms) and its patented Optical Virtualisation are unique to the SDN market. For the first time, tactical and dynamic slicing and splicing of a network’s resources on a fully end-to-end basis is made possible. End-to-end slicing is considered critical to delivering the service architecture and the network economics that will make the business case of 5G deliverable and sustainable.
NetOS® provides the orchestration of slices within and across multiple network technology layers, optical and packet. It is also able to support orchestration within the context of NFV where slices are optimised to serve bandwidth and latency requirements of particular virtualised network services.
The capabilities of NetOS® represent a critical addition to creating a fully-fledged orchestrator. The Zeetta Networks platform can be integrated with the appropriate third-party orchestrator to meet customer needs, such as current solutions provided by all the typical telecoms vendors like Amdocs, ONAP, and OSM. The NetOS® platform architecture and interfaces have been designed with full MEF compatibility in order to make such integration seamless.
Zeetta Networks is the only business that currently offers a comprehensive solution. While there are those that offer some slicing across one type of network, no other business offers such a complete end-to-end solution and automated network slicing in an open platform.
Zeetta Networks offers:l The only virtualisation technology on the market that supports optical layer virtualisation
l A patented optical virtualisation technology to create multiple coexisting VONs with their own network and quality service standards
l The ability for splicing of slices across multiple network domains as well across multiple technology layers
l Cross-Layer virtualisation that virtual networks can be re-planned on demand and without interruption of services
l The ability for tenants to create a complex virtual network topology and fully control it
l Unique recursive virtualisation for virtual operators to further virtualise their own virtual infrastructure
l An open standards and open platforms approach to SDN meets the demands of operators, carriers and enterprises alike for open innovation
Beyond vanilla solutions: the next generation of network commoditisation
Zeetta Networks, 1 Friary, Bristol BS1 6EA, UK | Tel +44 (0)117 344 5304 | Email [email protected] | www.zeetta.com
For further information, please see www.zeetta.com or email us at [email protected].
