This chapter provides an overview of Oracle Communications Network Service Orchestration.
Oracle Communications Network Service Orchestration is a functional module of Oracle Communications Unified Inventory Management (UIM). You use Network Service Orchestration to model network services, Virtual Network Functions (VNFs), and Physical Network Functions (PNFs). You also use Network Service Orchestration to manage the life cycles of network services and VNFs.
Network Service Orchestration enables you to create, implement, and manage the life cycles of network services and deploy the network services as interconnected VNFs and PNFs on virtual resources.
Network Service Orchestration provides the following functionality:
Onboarding of Network Services, VNFs, and PNFs. You can define network services, VNFs, and PNFs based on any network function that you want to virtualize. See "Designing and Onboarding Network Services, VNFs, and PNFs" for more information.
Instantiation, Scaling, and Termination of Network Services. You can quickly instantiate, scale, and terminate VNFs and network services in response to 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, VNFs, and PNFs" for more information.
Network Service Orchestration supports asynchronous communication with northbound applications. See "Integrating Network Service Orchestration With Northbound Applications for Asynchronous Communication" for more information.
Monitoring and Auto-healing. You can monitor the performance of VNFs continuously and configure Network Service Orchestration to heal a failed VNF automatically. See "Monitoring and Healing VNFs" for more information about monitoring and healing a VNF.
Resource Orchestration. Network Service Orchestration 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, VNFs, and PNFs" for more information.
Customization and Extension. You can customize and extend Network Service Orchestration to support integration with third-party VNF Managers, Virtualized Infrastructure Managers (VIMs), software-defined networking (SDN) controllers, and monitoring engines. Network Service Orchestration also provides extension points that enable you to customize and extend its core functionality. See "Extending Network Service Orchestration" for more information.
Network Service Orchestration 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 virtual, physical, and hybrid networks.
Oracle Communications Design Studio provides the design-time environment for onboarding VNFs and composing network services. Network Service Orchestration is extensible and allows integration with third-party VNF managers, VIMs, monitoring engines, and SDN Controllers.
Network Service Orchestration includes a VNF Manager that enables you to manage the life cycles of the VNFs. Network Service Orchestration also supports integration with Oracle and third-party VNF Managers, VIMs, SDN controllers, and network monitoring applications. By default, Network Service Orchestration provides integration to certain applications and supports integration to additional applications during the implementation.
Network Service Orchestration provides RESTful APIs, which communicate over HTTP and HTTPS, to interact and exchange data between various components.
Network Service Orchestration 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 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. |
|
Element Management System (EMS) |
Custom Object |
Represents the Element Management System, which performs the typical management functionality for one or several VNFs. |
|
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 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 Network Service Orchestration. 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 |
Represents the totality of all hardware and software components that build the environment where VNFs are deployed. NFVI can span across several locations. |
|
Network Service |
Service |
Represents a composition of network functions. |
|
Network Service Descriptor |
|
Describes a network service in terms of its deployment and operational behavior. Used in the process of network service on-boarding and managing the life cycle of a network service instance. |
|
Orchestration Request |
Business Interaction |
Represents an NFV life-cycle action in UIM. Every time you perform a life-cycle action, Network Service Orchestration creates a business interaction for the action in UIM. |
|
Physical Network Function (PNF) |
Logical Device Service |
Represents an implementation of a network function that is a tightly-coupled hardware and software system. A network function is a functional building block within a network infrastructure that has well-defined external interfaces and a well-defined functional behavior. |
|
PNF Descriptor |
|
Describes a PNF in terms of its deployment and operational behavior. The PNF Descriptor is used for onboarding PNFs. |
|
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 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) |
|
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 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 life cycle of a VNF instance. |
The UIM user interface provides a group of links and pages for performing network service and VNF life cycle operations and for managing your data center resources.
The UIM user interface displays the Network Service Orchestration group in the navigation section that includes the following expandable and collapsible subgroups of links:
In the Orchestration subgroup:
Orchestration Requests. Clicking this link displays the Search page for orchestration requests. From the Search page, you can create new orchestration requests. The Search page also returns service requests that are created based on your NFV service request specifications.
Network Services. Clicking this link displays the Search page for network services. From the Search page, you can create new network services. The Search page also returns a list of network services that are created 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 created based on your VNF descriptors.
In the Catalog group:
Network Service Descriptors. Clicking this link displays the Search page for Network Service descriptors. From the Search page, you can create and instantiate new network services. The search page also 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.
For more information about the user interface, see ”UIM User Interface Overview” in UIM Concepts. See UIM Help for instructions about performing tasks related to network services, VNFs, and PNFs.
UIM includes a Help system that you use to get step-by-step instructions. You can find the information you need by searching or by navigating through the table of contents. See ”Using the UIM Help” in UIM Concepts for more information about the UIM Help system.
Network Service Orchestration includes the following sample cartridges that you can use as references for designing and implementing your own network services:
Juniper_vSRX_VNF. This sample cartridge contains the Juniper vSRX firewall VNF to use with the network protection service.
Checkpoint_NG_FW_VNF. This sample cartridge contains the Checkpoint firewall VNF to use with the network protection service.
Cisco_xRV_PNF. This sample cartridge contains the Cisco XRV router PNF to use with the residential gateway network service.
NPaaS_NetworkService. This sample cartridge contains the functionality to implement network protection as a service.
ResidentialGateway_NetworkService. This sample cartridge contains the functionality to implement a residential gateway service.
See "Implementing the Sample Network Services" for detailed information about the sample network services.