This chapter provides an overview of the NFV Orchestration functionality in Oracle Communications Unified Inventory Management (UIM).
You use the NFV Orchestration functionality to model network services, Virtual Network Functions (VNFs), and Physical Network Functions (PNFs). You also use this functionality to manage the life cycles of network services and VNFs.
This functionary 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.
In addition, this functionality enables you to model a VNF that is composed of multiple internal components called Virtual Network Function Components (VNFCs), that you can deploy on multiple Virtual Deployment Units (VDUs). You deploy the VDUs as virtual machines (VMs) in the NFV Infrastructure (NFVI), thus enabling you to design and deploy large, complex VNFs across multiple VMs. See "About VNF Descriptor Files" for more information.
The NFV Orchestration functionality provides the following:
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 and termination of network services. You can quickly instantiate 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, VDUs, and PNFs" for more information.
Scaling of VNFs. You can scale VNFs when the existing resources assigned to a VNF are unable to provide the expected quality of service, so it is necessary to add additional resources to meet the needs of the VNF and to maintain the quality of service. See "Scaling VNFs" for more information.
Healing VNFs. You can heal a VNF when the VNF fails to perform at the expected performance level. See "Healing VNFs" for more information.
Resource orchestration. You can manage the resources across your data centers to ensure that each network service is allocated the required resources to meet the requirements of the VNFs. See "Working with Network Services, VNFs, VDUs, and PNFs" for more information.
VNF orchestration using OpenStack Heat templates. You can orchestrate VNFs in a network service using OpenStack Heat Orchestration Template (HOT). See "Orchestrating VNFs Using Heat Templates" for more information.
Integrating to generic external EMS systems for managing VNF configuration. NFV Orchestration provides a framework that supports integration to generic external EMS systems for VNF configuration management. See "Configuring NFV Orchestration for Using a Generic EMS Interface" for more information.
Asynchronous communication with northbound applications. The NFV Orchestration functionality enables you to communicate asynchronously with northbound applications. See "Integrating UIM NFV Orchestration With Northbound Applications for Asynchronous Communication" for more information.
Viewing progress of life-cycle actions. You can view notifications that indicate the progress of the life-cycle actions that you perform on the network service and its constituent VNFs. See "Viewing Progress of Life-cycle Actions" for more information.
Customization and extension. You can customize and extend the NFV Orchestration functionality to support integration with third-party VNF Managers, Virtualized Infrastructure Managers (VIMs), software-defined networking (SDN) controllers, and monitoring engines. This functionality also provides extension points that enable you to customize and extend its core functionality. See "Extending UIM NFV Orchestration" for more information.
The NFV Orchestration functionality takes advantage of UIM's inventory and workflow capabilities to perform run-time orchestration of NFV environments, including virtual, physical, and hybrid networks.
Oracle Communications Design Studio provides the design-time environment for onboarding VNFs and composing network services. The NFV Orchestration functionality is extensible and allows integration with third-party VNF managers, VIMs, monitoring engines, and SDN Controllers.
This functionality includes a VNF Manager that enables you to manage the life cycles of the VNFs. It also supports integration with Oracle and third-party VNF Managers, VIMs, SDN controllers, and network monitoring applications. By default, this functionality provides integration to certain applications and supports integration to additional applications during the implementation.
UIM NFV Orchestration provides RESTful APIs, which communicate over HTTP and HTTPS, to interact and exchange data between various components.
UIM NFV 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). 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. 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 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, NFV 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). |
|
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. |
|
Virtual Deployment Unit (VDU) |
Logical Device |
Represents a virtual machine that hosts a single or multiple components of a VNF. |
|
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 NFV 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.
VNFs. 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 subgroup:
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.
See the chapter on ”UIM User Interface Overview” in UIM Concepts for more information about the user interface. See the 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 the section on ”Using the UIM Help” in the chapter, ”UIM User Interface Overview” in UIM Concepts for more information about the UIM Help system.
UIM NFV Orchestration includes the following sample cartridges that you can use as references for designing and implementing your own network services:
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.
IMS_NetworkService. This sample cartridge provides the functionality to implement an IMS network service.
Juniper_vSRX. This sample cartridge contains the Juniper vSRX firewall VNF to use with the network protection service.
Checkpoint_NG_FW. This sample cartridge contains the Checkpoint firewall VNF to use with the network protection service.
Cisco_xRV. This sample cartridge contains the Cisco XRV router PNF to use with the residential gateway network service.
Clearwater_vIMS. This sample cartridge contains the Clearwater IMS VNF to use with the IMS network service.
See "Implementing the Sample Network Services" for detailed information about the sample network services.