This chapter provides an overview of Oracle Communications Network Service Orchestration Solution and describes the solution components and software requirements.
The Network Service Orchestration solution enables you to create, implement, and manage the life cycles of network services and deploy the network services as interconnected virtual network functions (VNFs) on virtual resources.
The Network Service Orchestration solution provides the following functionality:
Onboarding of Network Services and VNFs. You can define network services and VNFs based on any network function that you want to virtualize. See "Designing and Onboarding Network Services and VNFs" for more information.
Instantiation, Scaling, and Termination of Network Services. You can quickly instantiate, scale, or terminate VNFs and network services in response to the demand on your network. You can manage the life cycles of your VNFs and network services and control the resources that they use. See "Working with Network Services and VNFs" for more information.
The solution supports asynchronous communication with northbound applications. See "Integrating the Solution With Northbound Applications for Asynchronous Communication" for more information.
Monitoring and Auto-healing. You can monitor the performance of the VNFs continuously and configure the solution to heal a failed VNF automatically. See "Monitoring and Healing a VNF" for more information about monitoring and healing a VNF.
Resource Orchestration. The solution manages the resources across your data centers to ensure that each network service is allocated the required resources to meet the needs of the VNFs. See "Working with Network Services and VNFs" for more information.
Customization and Extension. You can customize and extend the solution to support integration with third-party VNF Managers, Virtualized Infrastructure Managers (VIMs), software-defined networking (SDN) controllers, and monitoring engines. The solution also provides extension points that enable you to customize and extend the solution's core functionality. See "Extending the Network Service Orchestration Solution" for more information.
The solution includes a VNF Manager that enables you to manage the life cycles of the VNFs. The solution also supports integration with Oracle and third-party VNF Managers, VIMs, SDN controllers, and network monitoring applications. By default, the solution provides integration to certain applications and supports integration to additional applications during the implementation. The solution provides RESTful APIs, which communicate over HTTP, to interact and exchange data with the solution's components.
The Network Service Orchestration solution builds on Oracle Communications Unified Inventory Management (UIM), taking advantage of its inventory and workflow capabilities to perform run-time orchestration of Network Functions Virtualization (NFV) environments, including hybrid, virtual, and physical networks.
Oracle Communications Design Studio provides the design-time environment for onboarding VNFs and composing network services. The solution is extensible and allows integration with third-party VNF managers, VIMs, monitoring engines, and SDN Controllers.
The Network Service Orchestration solution uses the Oracle Communications Information Model (OCIM) to represent inventory items and business practices. The Oracle Communications Information Model is based on the Shared Information Data (SID) model developed by the TeleManagement Forum. The information model contains resource entities, service entities, common patterns, definitions, and common business entities.
For details about the Oracle Communications Information Model (OCIM), see Oracle Communications Information Model Reference and UIM Information Model Reference.
Table 1-1 describes the NFV entities and their corresponding OCIM entities.
Table 1-1 Mapping of NFV Entities and OCIM Entities
| NFV Entity | OCIM Entity | Description |
|---|---|---|
|
Availability Zone |
Custom Object with the following characteristics:
|
Represents a grouping of resources based on availability characteristics, for example Availability Zone (OpenStack), Resource Pool (VMware). In OpenStack, availability zones enable you to arrange OpenStack compute hosts into logical groups and provides a form of physical isolation and redundancy from other availability zones, such as by using a separate power supply or network equipment. |
|
Connection Point |
Device Interface |
Represents a port on the VNF. Connection points connect Virtual Links to VNFs. They represent the virtual interfaces and physical interfaces of the VNFs and their associated properties and other metadata |
|
Deployment Flavor |
Custom Object |
Represents a specific deployment of a network service or VNF supporting specific key performance indicators (KPIs), such as capacity and performance. |
|
Endpoint |
Custom Object |
Describes a service access point for the network service. |
|
Flavor |
Custom Object |
Defines the compute, memory, and storage capacity of computing instances. A flavor is an available hardware configuration for a server. It defines the size of a virtual server that can be launched. |
|
Host |
Custom Object with the following characteristics:
|
Represents a compute host, a physical host dedicated to running compute nodes. |
|
Infrastructure Domain |
Network Address Domain |
Represents the domain within the NFV Infrastructure that includes all networking that interconnects compute and storage infrastructure. |
|
IP Network Infrastructure |
|
Represents the network, subnet, and IP address of the VNF in the solution. The networks are either created or referenced in the service configuration. During activation, the corresponding network, subnet, and ports are created in the VIM on which the VNF virtual machine is deployed. |
|
IP Address |
IP Address |
Represents an IPv4Address and an IPv6Address in the OCIM domain model. |
|
Network Functions Virtualization Infrastructure (NFVI) |
Custom object with the following characteristics:
|
Represents the totality of all hardware and software components that build the environment where VNFs are deployed. Represents a tenant. |
|
Network Service |
Service |
Represents a composition of network functions. |
|
Network Service Descriptor |
Service Specification |
Describes a network service in terms of its deployment and operational behavior. Used in the process of network service on-boarding and managing the lifecycle of a network service instance. |
|
NFV Service Request |
Business Interaction |
Represents an NFV life-cycle action in UIM. Every time you perform a life-cycle action, the solution creates a business interaction for the action in UIM. |
|
SDN Controller |
Custom Object |
Centralizes some or all of the control and management functionality of a network domain. An SDN controller can also provide an abstract view of its domain to other functional components through well-defined interfaces. |
|
Subnet |
IP Subnet |
Represents an administrative or functional boundary on a range of network addresses. A subnet is defined by a base range whose sequence is often appended to a fixed prefix. |
|
Virtual Data Center (VDC) |
Custom Object with the following characteristics:
|
Represents the resources managed by a VIM under a specific tenant (for example OpenStack) or Organization Virtual Data Center (VMware). |
|
Virtual Link |
IP Network |
Describes the basic topology of connectivity between VNFs and target parameters, such as bandwidth, latency, and QoS. Virtual links connect to VNFs using Connection Points (CPs). |
|
Virtual Network Function (VNF) |
Logical Device |
Represents an implementation of a network function that can be deployed on a Network Function Virtualization Infrastructure (NFVI). A network function is a functional building block within a network infrastructure that has well-defined external interfaces and a well-defined functional behavior. |
|
Virtualized Infrastructure Manager (VIM) |
Custom Object with the following characteristics:
|
Represents a functional component that is responsible for controlling and managing the NFVI compute, storage and network resources, usually within an operator's infrastructure domain. |
|
VNF Descriptor |
|
Describes a VNF in terms of its deployment and operational behavior. The VNF Descriptor is used in the process of VNF onboarding and managing the lifecycle of a VNF instance. |
The Network Service Orchestration solution includes sample cartridges that you can use as references for designing and implementing a network protection service.
See "About the Sample Network Protection Service Model" for detailed information about the service model and instructions for implementing the sample network protection service.
By default, in the UIM user interface, the entities are labeled using the standard UIM names that are based on Oracle Communications Information Model. For example, VNFs are displayed as logical devices and VNF descriptors are displayed as Logical Device specifications. You can customize the UIM user interface to label your entities using the standard NFV terminology.
The Network Service Orchestration solution provides a branding sample cartridge that you can deploy into UIM to display a separate group of links and pages. The group display your resource entities in the NFV-standard terminology. The cartridge provides NFV-specific label names for links, field names, and entities in the UIM user interface. The cartridge also filters entities in the search results pages to display only the solution-specific entities that you work with in the solution.
When you deploy the branding cartridge into UIM, UIM does the following:
Displays the Network Service Orchestration Solution banner at the top of the UIM screens.
Displays the Network Service Orchestration group in the navigation section that includes the following expandable and collapsible subgroups of links:
In the Orchestration subgroup:
NFV Service Requests. Clicking this link displays the Search page for service requests. The search page returns service requests that are based on your NFV service request specifications.
Network Services. Clicking this link displays the Search page for network services. The search page returns a list of network services that are based on your network service descriptors.
Virtual Network Functions. Clicking this link displays the Search page for VNFs. The search page returns a list of VNFs that are based on your VNF descriptors.
In the Catalog group:
Network Service Descriptors. Clicking this link displays the Search page for Network Service descriptors. The search page returns a list of network service descriptors.
VNF Descriptors. Clicking this link displays the Search page for VNF descriptors. The search page returns a list of VNF descriptors.
Filters the entities that are displayed in the search results pages to retrieve only those entities that are created based on your VNF and network service descriptors that you use in the solution.
See "Configuring UIM for the Network Service Orchestration Solution" for instructions about branding the UIM user interface.