Introducing Cloudify Telecom Edition – Open Source NFV Orchestration Goodness
NFV based on ETSI architecture has really found its way into the heart of the telecom industry in a very short time. With all of the telecom operators in a mad dash to get a stable, scalable, and reliable open source software implementation of their networks on generic hardware, there is a clear need, as defined in the ETSI architecture, for an open source NFV orchestrator (NFV-O) that can handle the full lifecycle of a production-grade, multi-VIM application deployment; which is why we recently announced the upcoming release of Cloudify Telecom Edition!
Intelligent NFV orchestration for multi-VIM deployments and hybrid workloads. Download today. Go
Tailored for Telecom NFV
Telecom is a world in and of itself when it comes to cloud orchestration. Network Functions Virtualization (NFV) is a relatively new concept which, at its core, means turning physical network appliances (network functions) into virtual resources running on standard hardware using standard virtualization technologies, called virtual network functions (VNFs). For example, taking an actual, propietary firewall box and instead using a cheaper, regular server with virtualized firewall software – referred to as a vFW.
Our team has a wealth of experience with Telecom operators already. Cloudify has been working with Tier 1 network operators, such as Deutsche Telekom, in working towards complete automation and orchestration of their NFV deployments. The telecom edition is expected to be released soon with a large set of new features. NFV-specific plugins, and blueprints geared toward building VNFs and SFC (service function chaining). Here are some of the things you can expect from the new telecom edition:
- Multi-VIM – Now fully open source vCloud and vSphere plugins, alongside OpenStack native support
- Overlay Service Chaining
- Netconf plugin
- TOSCA/YANG data modeling interoperability
- Network service management
- Clearwater vIMS blueprints and plugins
- F5 BigIP plugin
- VNF updates for running VNFs and services
- NIC ordering
- Enhanced Platform Awareness coupled with Data Plane Acceleration through integration with Intel
- Drag and drop Cloudify Composer with VNF-specific components
- Using ARIA as the kernel for TOSCA Orchestration
- Support installation within environments with no internet access
- Support for Cloud Native services through Kubernetes plugin
Multi-VIM and Hybrid Workload Capabilities
Another big focus for Cloudify Telecom Edition is multi-VIM orchestration. Cloudify, already has support for all the major private clouds such as OpenStack, VMware vCloud Director and vSphere, VMware integrated OpenStack, Azure, GCP, CloudStack as well as the ability to burst into public clouds such as Amazon. Cloudify also extends its abilities to hybrid workloads including containers and microservices.
TOSCA and ARIA for NFV
TOSCA is a topology specification standard that is making moves towards NFV with various use cases. Cloudify natively supports TOSCA, since the 3.0 release, and takes active role in the specification itself. One of TOSCA’s advantages is its ability to natively handle multi-VIM topologies, which makes Cloudify with TOSCA the ideal candidate for NFV orchestration.
Also, in order to push TOSCA adoption forwrad, we founded ARIA, the open source and open governance reference implementation for TOSCA, which is a library of tools for open source projects to easily build TOSCA orchestration solutions. With ARIA, telecom operators can already begin building their MANO solutions without the need to implement it from scratch.
Cloudify NFV Lab
Until the new Telecom Edition is released, users are encouraged to try our NFV Lab to learn about NFV orchestration and receive a virtual environment where they can test actual NFV blueprint deployments with Cloudify and TOSCA.
You can find more details on the Cloudify Telecom Edition page and to register to be notified when it is released.
More Resources
- Learn TOSCA online – powered by Cloudify LMS
- Watch the Athonet vIMS & vEPC demo based on Cloudify that won VMware vCloud NFV a Best of Show Award at Interop Tokyo.