IG1122 NFV Readiness: Operating a Hybrid Virtualization Network Infrastructure R14.5.1

The majority of the industry activity on Network Function Virtualization (NFV) has focused on the requirements for architecture and standards for Virtual Networks Functions (VNF), i.e., Standards for Function¬ or Standards for Manufacture

Service providers introducing NFV will need to establish a hybrid operating environment comprising both the new NFV based networks services and current network services. There are several reasons including:

• Capital investments cannot be changed overnight since SPs need to continue to exploit the investment they have made.
• Practically SP will focus their NFV investments in areas they think they will get best returns and agility; and will wish to deliver new networks services in combination with current network services.
• It will take SP some time to establish the best practice of operating Virtualized network Services so operations will evolve in a series of steps form current practice to something closer to IT DevOps operational Practice.

This briefing investigates some of the operations issues and proposes:

• A Migration Dashboard with a set of metrics to enable SP manage the transition from current network operations through a series of hybrid network operations stages.
• A set of exemplar hybrid operations scenarios are developed which illustrates some of the operations and OSS changes that will occur during the hybrid network operations – including additional interfaces, changes in where the data of record is mastered, etc.

It is expected that these examples will stimulate discussion amongst service providers to refine the proposed Migration Dashboard and metric, and to develop other exemplar operations scenarios.