ONAP

The Road to Implementation Successful Integration and Deployment Strategies

In an effort to remain competitive in a rapidly evolving marketplace, telecom service providers are joining open source communities and integrating open source code into their networks at a fast pace. Industry experts expect this adoption rate to increase. According to a 2018 report from ACG Research, communications service providers’ top three drivers for implementing open source are to:

● Unify solutions to common CSP pain points, as well as their investments in them ● Steer clear of vendor lock-in ● Tap into a more extensive talent pool

Other drivers include the ability to access new services and markets faster, to see a better overall ROI and to reduce costs.1 Indeed, web-scale companies such as Facebook, Amazon, Netflix and Google have driven economies of scale with the open source model. As Red Hat’s Darrell Jordan-Smith pointed out to TelecomTV at Open Networking Summit 2018, roughly 70 percent of everything OTT providers do is grounded in open source.2 One of the largest and fastest growing open source networking projects is the Linux Foundation’s Open Network Automation Platform (ONAP). ONAP has already attracted 60+ of the world’s biggest carriers and vendors, including AT&T, Bell Canada, Ciena, Cisco, IBM, Orange, Verizon and Vodafone, and it supports 60 percent of all mobile subscribers on the globe – impressive growth for an initiative that just launched in February 2017. (Of course, its roots go back much further; it was created when AT&T’s Enhanced Control Orchestration, Management and Policy – ECOMP – merged with the Open Orchestrator Project – OPEN-O.) ONAP - A Refresher ONAP is an open source service automation and orchestration platform created to automate and standardize virtualization projects. Network, cable and cloud providers are leveraging ONAP to realize faster development cycles, more robust operational automation, and faster time to revenue for the service delivery lifecycle. The closed-loop automation platform builds virtual network functions (VNFs) and software-defined networks (SDN) end-to-end, allowing service providers to implement standards-based lifecycle orchestration and service APIs for new technologies. While ONAP’s architecture is guided by metadata and policy, it is also flexible and able to evolve alongside companies’ changing needs. ONAP is the telecom industry’s path to the “intelligent network” and closed-loop orchestration.

1 https://www.linuxfoundation.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/LFN_ACG_2018_Impact_of_Open_Source-C_03.26.18.pdf 2 https://www.telecomtv.com/content/open-source/red-hat-and-the-impact-of-open-source-on-telecoms-operators-16608/

ONAP’s counterpart from ETSI, Open Source MANO (OSM), has also picked up support from key industry players, namely European carriers such as BT and Telefonica. However, ONAP has been backed by the majority market share of companies supporting open source automation platforms, and adoption is accelerating with regard to real-life implementations. Future Setting In keeping with our “future-proof your network” philosophy, we recently completed a major Proof of Concept (PoC) demo, showcasing the interoperability between ONAP and MEF 3.0 – Lifecycle Service Orchestration (LSO) architecture. Other implementations include Bell Canada’s automation use case,3 the work on multi-gigabit passive optical networks (PON) from AT&T and ONF,4 Ciena’s integration into its Blue Planet platform and more.5 But despite the excitement surrounding ONAP and the capabilities it promises for service providers, it is still in very early stages. The initial release, dubbed Amsterdam, is not quite production ready and, therefore, tricky to deploy on its own, though it offers solid functionality. With the Beijing release in May 2018, the open source community has worked to address these shortcomings and, in fact, added additional functionality to the platform. Platform maturity is the goal for the Beijing release, so functional architecture changes are minimal; instead, the ONAP team has made updates to communications security, APIs, model alignment, formatting and more. Many ONAP projects are the first of their kind at this point, so service providers that want to leverage ONAP should be sure to partner with the right implementation team that has significant operational experience with the code. The Road to Implementation Starts with Successful Planning - And Partnering Our ONAP solutions help you navigate the complexities of implementing ONAP into your existing network infrastructure -- whether you already are deploying SDN/NFV, or starting from the beginning. Our comprehensive consultative approach ensures that you meet your stated deployment goals and reduce your expenditures and overall operational expenses while enhancing your business with the latest and most advanced network management technologies available. Moreover, our integration and software development experience is valuable to clients looking to work ONAP into their existing OSS/BSS systems. GDX’s proven process covers every stage of ONAP integration, from helping to define your business objectives to post-implementation support.

3 https://www.fiercetelecom.com/telecom/bell-canada-brings-open-source-automation-onap-into-production 4 https://www.fiercetelecom.com/telecom/at-t-onf-to-integrate-multi-gigabit-pon-onap 5 https://www.fiercetelecom.com/telecom/ciena-injects-onap-into-its-blue-planet-platform-serves-up-enhanced-policy-capabilities

How We Do It – Our Approach ONAP enables capabilities for design, creation and lifecycle management that are independent of particular products and services, including:

● Ability to dynamically introduce full-service lifecycle orchestration (design, provisioning and operation) and service APIs for new services and technologies without the need for new platform software releases and without affecting operations for existing services

● Carrier-grade scalability including horizontal scaling (linear scale-out) and distribution to

support a large number of services and large networks

● Metadata-driven and policy-driven architecture to ensure flexible ways in which capabilities are used and delivered

● Common capabilities are developed once and used many times

● Supports elastic scaling as needs grow or shrink

We start with these defining principles and work to design a framework to meet and exceed our clients’ stated objectives. Design Time / Runtime Frameworks

The Service Design and Creation (SDC) environment (ONAP visual modeling and design tool) is where all the elements of services are modeled and created, and where the services themselves are modeled. The service and its interrelated parts are all developed here using a GUI interface that defines all of the attributes of the element or service. One of the inputs to this is the “heat” template that is created for the VNF(s).

All of this is then distributed into the various systems in the run-time environment as a set of artifacts and TOSCA models.

High-level View of the ONAP Architecture

Integration into MEF LSO Framework Put forth by the Metro Ethernet Forum (MEF), LSO is an agile approach to streamlining and automating the service lifecycle for coordinated management and control across all network domains responsible for delivering an end-to-end connectivity service (e.g., Carrier Ethernet, IP VPN, MPLS, etc.). The Management Interface Reference Points that characterize interactions between LSO functional management entities are identified in the reference architecture shown below. These Management Interface Reference Points are described such that they can be realized by Interface Profiles and further by APIs, which can be used to enable automated and orchestrated connectivity services. The LSO architecture and framework enables automated management and control of end-to-end connectivity services that span multiple provider domains. For example, a service provider may extend its footprint by using LSO to interact with, potentially, several operators to manage and control the access portions of end-to-end services. In the illustration below, ONAP is well integrated into this framework through the “Legato” interface in the LSO specification. This allows for the transfer of critical information from the BSS/OSS layer to the ONAP-based system in a standards-based manner. Additionally, if one is looking to accomplish carrier-to-carrier provisioning of services, the “Interlude” interface specification is used as the reference API to facilitate that mode of communication.

And finally, putting it all together below, within the LSO framework, ONAP would be used to orchestrate an NFVi platform to control the various virtual and/or physical network elements southbound. ONAP, using the LSO framework, is used to realize the end-to-end orchestrated, agile services that operators are looking to migrate toward:

Approach to ONAP Integration and Implementation

Assessment And ROI Analysis Our ONAP integration and implementation process starts by working with our clients in identifying the use cases that support the business ROI to deploy ONAP. A Proof of Concept can also be developed to demonstrate the platform and systematically introduce it into the network through a Pilot deployment. This is concurrent with an ONAP roadmap for successful integration and implementation to meet the expected goals of the platform. ONAP Implementation Roadmap Once the assessment and ROI analysis are completed, the next step is to design a production-oriented architecture that addresses each stated implementation objective in the PoC phase. The PoC stage is critical for the deployment of any new network technology. The PoC is based on identified use cases that are highly controllable and have few moving parts. The PoC is typically executed quickly with the key objective to test and verify the platform’s effectiveness and to determine what issues need further examination in order to guarantee successful implementation in a pilot or production environment.

Operational processes to manage the network from day-to-day are also defined. We assess ONAP implementation based on your existing network infrastructure and which process requirements are needed to implement the platform moving forward. Design and Architect GDX helps create, design and architect an ONAP strategy that is configured for your unique network requirements using industry best practices developed by our experienced networking team. As part of our engagement model, we will develop system requirements and system design documentation to drive the planning and execution in subsequent stages of deployment. Migration Planning ONAP implementation requires a determination of how to integrate the technology while still leveraging your existing network OSS/BSS investment. With ONAP, you’re looking at a complete view of how the network operates, including delivery capabilities for service design, creation, orchestration, monitoring and lifecycle management – a fully automated solution. Due to the increasing rate at which new products and technologies are being introduced in the field, GDX can also add significant value to the evaluation and vetting process of all of your existing vendors by providing expertise, benchmarking and resources as you migrate to an ONAP-centric provisioning platform. Deployment and Realisation As with any infrastructure or technology advancement, the integration of ONAP requires a detailed implementation plan with a timeline for specific phases of the deployment. The timeline should allow for the development of any software fine-tunes in advance and plan for configuration and optimization of these applications once ONAP is deployed. During deployment, service and device models, as well as APIs to connect to northbound and east-west systems, are developed and tested. Following the development process, we then perform user acceptance testing followed by full production implementation. Optimization Cost reductions vary across businesses, but the first goal should be to capture measurable savings on operational and infrastructure costs. Optimization of virtualized automation (low touch) is the key to lowering CapEx and OpEx. GDX helps establish a clear set of metrics to measure cost savings. Ongoing measurement and analysis of these metrics helps guide the network optimization process. The high level of automation and comparative ease of design and operational efficiencies leads to lower operating costs. Numerous man hours previously spent on hands-on design, orchestration and management are virtually eliminated, and the increased automation of an ONAP-enabled back office facilitates time management efficiencies unheard of until now. This will have a significant impact on your bottom line.

Support Training is essential in getting and keeping your IT team up to speed with ONAP architecture, and we offer several ways to learn. Whether supplementing an existing IT team or providing full end-to-end solutions, GDX has the resources to be a valuable partner in ONAP realization. Partner with a Proven Leader While ONAP as an open source project is still in its infancy, GDX considers it to be one of the leading platforms of the future. There is strong support for it in the open source community and significant commercial uptake. But given ONAP’s youth, questions remain. With multiple competing platforms out there, both open source and vendor-specific, which should you choose? How should you integrate into your existing support systems? Should you wait until ONAP has proven itself past the early release stage? We help our clients explore and answer these questions and more. Potential adopters should work with a vendor well-versed in integration and software development in relation to BSS/OSS, and preferably a team that has experience with ONAP or its platform predecessors (ECOMP and OPEN-O). The challenge we help clients overcome is to extract the benefits of this transformational code while mitigating the risk involved with early adoption. To achieve that goal, expertise and experience are key. As a sought after and experienced solutions integrator, GDX works with you as both a consultative partner and successful technology integrator. We will work with you to go from what has traditionally been a manual process (human error, time consuming, non-agile) and significantly improve your overall efficiencies. We understand the engineering and have the development and integration expertise to create new solutions that meet and exceed your exacting needs. Contact us now to learn more about our ONAP solutions. www.gdxnetwork.com