SDN and NVF Network Evolution

Steve Goeringer, Director, sgoeringer@polarstarconsulting.com

14900 Conference Center Dr.

Suite 280
Chantilly, VA 20151
www.polarstarconsulting.com
703.955.7770
Are NFV and SDN truly new?
Of course not
The intention of SDN is very similar to advanced intelligent networking (AIN)
The intention of NFV is basically a natural extension of many general
networking and computer science principles such as
OSI protocol abstraction
Object oriented design and programming

Were these legacy ideas successful?

AIN not so much
AIN has to wrestle with very complex state machines in amongst distributed systems
Alternative technologies emerged at the same time as competitiors
Computer telephony VoIP
Cellular phones
Protocol abstractions as specified under OSI are fundamental principles today
Object oriented programming was widely implemented and was
transformative, but was also not right for everything

There is much to learn from history

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SDN and NFV ARE critical to network evolution

Simplicity

Cost effectiveness

But, can we do more?

These are the obvious strategies
Can we focus adding value? On improving customer experience?

We know that were not there yet. Consider cloud networking

Cloud networking is largely enabled by SDN and NFV prototypes
L2 networking is very limited
Multicast not supported
Broadcast not supported
Network resiliency why would you care about that?
Network aware processing whats that?

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Imagine
a network where you only do gross capacity planning and network
disruption NEVER impacts the customer
Congestion not a problem
Protection events at L1 or L2 or even L3 have no impact.
Good-put == throughput (wow!)
Security is a design benefit rather than a cost factor
Never miss an SLA

Engineering simplicity
No ring constraints
Mesh network benefits with much simpler implementation
Experience management based on fact, not assumption
In other words, now you really can just throw bandwidth at the network and
your users will experience consistently excellent transport service

I believe we are very near to being able to provide such a network

THIS VISION REQUIRES NO NEW TECHNOLOGY.

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Assured Packet Delivery

NOT New

Survey of Packet Loss Recovery Techniques for Streaming Audio,

Colin Perkins, Orion Hodson, and Vicky Hardman of University College
London, IEEE Network, September/October 1998

Comprehensive taxonomy of solutions

Not all are applicable to every business goal or application

Some are not practical for some network implementations

Pervasive performance management
Performance management should be executed with an eye towards
ensuring customer experience

You cant manage what you dont measure

Devices end-to-end
Flows end-to-end, across multiple segments, and multiple sessions

Think of it this way: Data analytics and big data applied to networks with an
eye towards measuring and managing customer experience.

Lots of tools
Netflow (and kin), syslog, RMON, SNMP
Open source tools
Proprietary purchased environments

Expensive?
Sure, but most things worth doing are
SDN and NFV may enable flexibility that lower costs
Lots of the data is already collected is done for security purposes

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Parting questions
Can you do all that your customer needs alone?

Do you know your customers experience with the services you do

provide ?

Can you ensure service delivery in an international market increasingly

comprised of multiple service providers based on multiple technologies
using a wide range of equipment and software manufacturers?

These are hard problems