Cloud-Based Networking: Network Foundation Virtualization
In simplest terms, Network Foundation Virtualization (NFV) 1 is used to migrate the telecommunication equipment from specialized platform to universal x86-based commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) servers. The current telecom networking devices are deployed by the private platforms, within which all the network elements are closed boxes, which cannot utilize the hardware resources mutually. Therefore, the capacity expansion of each devices relies on the additional hardware, while the hard- ware resources lie idle after the capacity reduction, which is quite time-consuming with poor elasticity and high cost. Through NFV, all the network elements are transformed into independent applications that can be flexibly deployed on a unified platform based on a standard server, storage, and exchange mechanism. As shown in Fig. 2.1, with the decoupled software and hardware, the capacity of every application is available to be expanded rapidly through increasing the virtual resources, and vice versa, which has enhanced the elasticity of the network dramatically.
The technological foundation of NFV is the cloud computing and virtualization techniques in Information Technology (IT) industry. Through the virtualization techniques, the universal resources of computing, storage, and networking provided by COSTS can decompose into a variety of virtual recourses for the use of upper applications. At the same time, the application and hardware are decoupled through the virtualization techniques, while the supply speed of resources has shortened from a few days to a few minutes. Through the cloud computing technology, the flexible expansion and reduction of the applications is accomplished for contributing to the matching of resources and business load, which does not only improve the resource utilization rate but also ensure the system response speed. Specifically, the deployment of NFV brings the following advantages:
- The purchasing, operation and maintenance costs, and energy consumption of the operators are reduced.
- The business deployment is accelerated, while the innovation cycle is decreased. Specifically, the efficiency of testing and integration are improved, the development cost is reduced, and the conventional hardware deployment is replaced with the quick software installation.
- Network applications support multi-version and multi-tenant to enable the different applications, users, tenants sharing a unified platform, so the network sharing is possible.
- The personalized service of different physical domains and user groups are available, while the service modules can be rapidly expanded.
- The network is open, and the business innovation is able to cause new potential profit increasing point.