The Current

State of NFV
Deployment and
How It’s
Predicted to
Change
 The Current State of NFV Deployment and How It’s Predicted to Change

In this E-Guide:
Network functions virtualization (NFV) deployments are often complex and time-consuming,
but they’re expected to accelerate as more organizations implement IoT and wireless 5G.
Read this expert guide to learn about the current status of NFV deployments, and hear from
Where does NFV network expert Lee Doyle about how open source, 5G and IoT can drive future changes.
deployment stand
today?

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 The Current State of NFV Deployment and How It’s Predicted to Change

Where does NFV deployment stand

today?
Lee Doyle, Principal Analyst
Where does NFV
deployment stand Network functions virtualization continues to mature among service providers, with many
today? examples of successful NFV deployments in 2017. Service providers will continue to invest
in NFV in 2018 by extending deployments to new applications and parts of the network,
scaling existing systems and implementing more complex, multivendor virtual network
functions, or VNFs.

Service providers have deployed NFV technologies for a range of applications, including
virtual customer premises equipment (vCPE), IP Multimedia System (IMS), Evolved Packet
Core (EPC), security, video and management. And NFV deployment is proving to be
reliable, offers high performance and has the ability to operate at scale, according to service
providers.

Despite the many benefits of NFV in terms of scalability, flexibility and cost, most service
providers indicated that NFV remains challenging to deploy widely in their networks. NFV
deployments are complex and time-consuming, and significant management and
orchestration (MANO) challenges remain. Buyers are unsure of their long-term NFV
architecture due to the wealth of incompatible standards and vendor-specific options.

Available NFV platforms

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 The Current State of NFV Deployment and How It’s Predicted to Change

Hardware, such as server platforms, and related infrastructure software are critical
components of a successful NFV deployment. Intel-based servers from Hewlett Packard
Enterprise (HPE) and Dell currently lead as NFV platform options, but expect ARM suppliers
to increase their platform options in 2018.

Picking the right NFV infrastructure software is critical to long-term NFV success. For
Where does NFV platform software, OpenStack and VMware continue to battle for position as the top NFV
deployment stand infrastructure choice.
today?
Hypervisors remain popular NFV platform options. Containers running NFV also offer
significant performance benefits for NFV applications compared to hypervisors, although
they are only just starting to move out of labs for early proof-of-concept trials. Containers will
see increased popularity over time -- think 2019 to 2021 -- and more support from VNF
suppliers in 2018.

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 The Current State of NFV Deployment and How It’s Predicted to Change

Where does NFV

deployment stand
today?

NFV management and orchestration challenges

The immaturity of MANO standards continues to hinder wide-scale NFV implementation,
and the complexity of integrating NFV components and effectively deploying MANO will
continue to challenge most service providers.

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 The Current State of NFV Deployment and How It’s Predicted to Change

The MANO standards community made significant developments in 2017, however. ONAP
gained momentum following AT&T's contribution of its Enhanced Control, Orchestration,
Management and Policy code. AT&T, Orange, China Mobile, Bell Canada and many other
service providers support ONAP.

Like other standards-based MANO options, ONAP is a broad platform with many options. It
Where does NFV can be combined with OpenDaylight, OpenStack and Open Platform for NFV to implement
deployment stand open source NFV.
today?
IoT and 5G could help
drive NFV deployment
NFV deployments are
NFV deployments are expected to accelerate
expected to accelerate
with the advent of wireless 5G and the internet
of things, as 5G deployments grow and IoT with the advent of
devices increasingly connect to the wireless wireless 5G and the
network. New 5G network deployments will internet of things, as 5G
require a radically different network
architecture, which will benefit from NFV and deployments grow and
container technologies. For example, 5G relies IoT devices increasingly
on NFV to provide intelligence at the wireless connect to the wireless
edge to handle network slicing, traffic handling
and routing.
network.
Connecting millions of IoT devices requires
service providers to adapt their core and edge networks. NFV enables this adaptation by

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 The Current State of NFV Deployment and How It’s Predicted to Change

facilitating the required improvements for mobile edge computing, analytics and
performance monitoring.

Rise of open source NFV

Service providers are promoting the use of open source software for NFV deployments.
Where does NFV
Open source software is available for NFV infrastructure, MANO and for select applications
deployment stand
as open source VNFs.
today?
The goals of open source NFV are to accelerate NFV innovation and to pursue cost
reductions by running low-cost software on commodity hardware. Open source NFV
implementation in production networks will require significant resources, however. The use
of open source for NFV will increase during 2018, but it will still be a minority of overall
deployments.

NFV strategy recommendations for service

providers
NFV is delivering proven benefits, like lower costs, increased agility and platform
independence. In 2018, service providers will continue to deploy NFV across a variety of
applications, focusing on vCPE, the mobile core, video, security and management.

Supplier selection remains critical for NFV deployment due to overall complexity, integration
requirements and support for a long-term architecture. So, service providers should carefully
select suppliers to implement NFV across platforms, applications and MANO.

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 The Current State of NFV Deployment and How It’s Predicted to Change

Below are some examples of vendors that service providers can choose from when
deploying NFV:

 Large network equipment providers, like Ericsson, Huawei, Cisco and Nokia;
 IT suppliers, like Intel, HPE, Red Hat, Dell EMC and VMware;
 VNF suppliers with products in specific areas, like software-defined WAN, vCPE,
Where does NFV IMS, security and EPC.
deployment stand
today? How NFV deployments have changed
The NFV initiative has largely been driven by service providers to increase the use of
virtualization and commercial servers. NFV combines these technologies, along with open
software, to fundamentally change the construction and operation of networks.

Originally, service providers deployed NFV for discrete point applications in their networks.
Because service providers have large operational networks driving millions in monthly
revenue, an initial NFV deployment generally focused on greenfield applications, for new
services, or applications that aren't directly involved in transmitting live data, like voice and
video.

To ease migration challenges and maintain service reliability, most service providers started
implementing NFV in a phased approach. While NFV deployments continue to be
challenging and complex, service providers are now looking to incorporate more multivendor
VNFs and to extend NFV to new applications.

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