VNFs at the Edge using Docker Containers
Transcript of VNFs at the Edge using Docker Containers
Where is your Edge?
• SDN/NFV discussions have mainly focused at the Main or Regional Data Center
• Recently, the “Edge” represents the ISP premise location closest to the home, user, consumer, device, etc.
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The ISP Data Center
• Data Centers consist of a myriad of servers that are geographically close.
• This facilitates control by the ISP
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Home – the “Anti” Data Center
• Orchestration software was never meant to scale from thousands of servers to millions of homes
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VNFs – Why in the home?
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Why in the home?
-‐ WAN Fault
-‐ Performance
-‐ Reduce Traffic
Home – the “Anti” Data Center
• Orchestration software will change from data center orchestrators to ‘profiles’ or ‘templates’
• These standard profiles can remove the need for SFC (Service Function Chaining) because the home has simpler needs.
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Home Profiles
• Imagine a home profile with two VNFs:
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FW-‐1 FW-‐2
PC-‐4 PC-‐3
FW-‐3
PC-‐1 PC-‐2 PC-‐5 PC-‐6
FW-‐5 FW-‐4
FW-‐4 PC-‐2 Template #17
Why is the home of such interest?
• Competition to control the home is just beginning to appear.
– Google’s OnHub ( 4GB storage )
– Amazon’s Alexa ( Records your commands )
– Google’s NEST ( Tunnels back to Google )
– Apple’s Home Design Kit ( IoT Control )
– Smart Phone Apps ( Acts as a TV Remote) 10/28/15 12
The home will be the focus of many ISPs
• Superior information with customer actions
– Incredibly rich user data on habits, not just opinions
– Amazingly complete meta data from all home devices
– Not just usage: • Time-based usage
• Location-based usage
• Features-based usage 10/28/15 13
VNFs can reside in any cloud – even the home!
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Why in the home?
-‐ WAN Fault
-‐ Performance
-‐ Reduce Traffic
-‐ Link Metrics
A case for “Disposable Containers”
• An ISP may want to measure their link to the home
– Latency values – Jitter values – Packet loss values – QoE voice metrics
• Echo
• Background noise
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A case for “Disposable VNFs”
• Having a “NID” permanently installed is needless, consumes resources and adds to the cost of the home gateway
• Sending VNFs to the Home Gateway could be the answer
• VNFs would “self destruct” when an appropriate trigger event occurs
• This relieves the orchestrator from managing and removing potentially millions of distributed VNFs
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A case for “Disposable Containers”
• Event triggers could include:
– Time Limit, such as a TTL counter that counts down seconds
– Usage Limit counts down for every external request is received
– Usage Limit counts down each time an internal VNF action happens
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Summary to this Introduction of Concepts
• We’ve seen that the edge is moving to the home
• There is keen interest with user habits in the home
• Current Orchestrators cannot scale to the needs of a fully distributed home edge (anti-data center)
• Some VNFs are appropriate to reside on the home gateway
• There is a need for transient VNFs to self-destruct 10/28/15 20