Networks Modernization Using SDN and NFV

Technologies
G. Kundimana A. Vyukusenge
Moscow Technical University of Communications and Moscow Technical University of Communications and
Informatics Informatics
Moscow, Russia Moscow, Russia
2021 Systems of Signals Generating and Processing in the Field of on Board Communications | 978-1-6654-1548-4/21/$31.00 ©2021 IEEE | DOI: 10.1109/IEEECONF51389.2021.9416015

[email protected] [email protected]

A. Tsym
FSUE ZNIIS
Moscow, Russia
[email protected]

Abstract— Network modernization using software-defined network management and data transmission are separated, and
networks (SDN) technology and network functions virtualization control functions are implemented by a controller [2, 7] – a
(NFV) involves the use of a unified physical infrastructure, based separate node that interacts with network devices – switches [10].
on which various applications that implement all possible
network functions operate. The explosive growth of mobile It is assumed that SDN will allow transforming currently
devices and content, as well as virtualization and the emergence active static networks into flexible, programmable networks
of cloud services, is forcing the network industry to rethink with dynamic resource allocation, support for scalability and
traditional architectures. In networks with SDN architecture, the virtualization by creating a dynamic, highly automated and
network industry is actively developing OpenFlow Protocol to secure cloud environment.
provide communication between the control layer (SDN
controllers) and data transfer devices (SDN switches). This The main principles of the SDN concept are [4]:
article offers possibilities for modernization optical networks • separation of data transmission and management
using various options for implementing SDN/NFV technologies. processes;
Keywords— SDN, NFV, SDN switch, SDN controller, • a single, unified, vendor-independent interface between the
OpenFlow. management layer and the data layer;
• logically centralized network management performed
I. INTRODUCTION
using a controller (Fig. 1) with a network operating
Intensive implementation of innovative system installed and network applications implemented
Telecommunication technologies, products and services on top of it;
necessitates the development of regulatory and technical
documents that ensure the development of information • virtualization of physical network resources.
infrastructure. Currently, SDN and NFV are promising.
The SDN and NFV concepts offer new approaches to
building and operating the network of a Telecom operator,
which involve the use of a unified physical infrastructure,
based on which various programs that implement the
necessary network functions work. In addition, standard
virtualization technologies, open specified protocols, network
operating systems, and standard hardware based on various
architectures are used with support for virtualization functions
at the level of the processor hardware architecture [1].
Thus, in this paper, authors propose to develop principles
for applying SDN/NFV technologies, requirements for
building networks based on these technologies, and rules for
using equipment that implements SDN technology.

II. THE SDN CONCEPT AND IMPLEMENTATION OPTIONS

The SDN concept offers a new approach to the Fig. 1. SDN controller
organization of network interaction, in which the levels of

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 The SDN architecture [11] is shown in Fig. 2. Factory), HLR/HSS (Home Location Register/Home
Subscriber Server), SGSN (Serving GPRS Support
A large number of industry associations and international Node), GGSN (GPRS Gateway Support Node), PDN
organizations are currently engaged in developing SDN GW (Public Data Network Gateway), Node B, eNode B;
standards and conducting SDN – related research with the
participation of interested commercial companies-network • the functions of the user devices, including routers and
equipment manufacturers, communication network operators STB (Set Top Box);
and software developers.
• gateways: IPSec/SSL VPN (IP Security/Secure Sockets
Layer Virtual Private Network);
• traffic analysis functions: DPI (Deep Packet Inspection),
QoE (Quality of Experience) score;
• service quality assurance functions: SLA (Service Level
Agreement) monitoring, testing, and diagnostics;
• NGN (Next Generation Network) signaling processing
functions NGN: SBC (Session Border Controller), IMS
(IP Multimedia System);

Fig. 2. The SDN architecture

• network-wide functions: AAA (Authentication,
Authorization and Accounting) servers, policy control,
billing;
The SDN switches (in a Clos topology) are shown in Fig. • application layer functions: CDN (Content Distribution
3. Networks), caching servers, load balancers;
• security features: firewalls, antivirus tools, intrusion
detection systems, anti-spam tools;
• OSS/BSS (Operations Support System/ Business Support
System).
The NFV network architecture [3, 6, 12] is shown in Fig.
4.

Fig. 3. SDN switch

III. THE NFV CONCEPT AND ITS IMPLEMENTATION OPTIONS

The NFV concept involves consolidating the functions of
various types of network equipment operated by
communication network operators, high-performance servers,
switches, and storage systems located at the points of presence Fig. 4. NFV architecture
of the NFV infrastructure, which can be data processing
centers (DPCs). Thus, unified hardware can be used and Standardization of the NFV concept is carried out by the
provides computing capabilities, memory for data storage, and ETSI (European Telecommunications Standards Institute). It
network bandwidth management, while the resources of includes an ISG (Industry Specification Group) on the NFV
unified hardware are dynamically allocated to software- concept. Currently, the number of participants ISG NFV
implemented virtualized network functions (VNF). include Telecommunications carriers, network equipment
The list of virtualized network functions includes [9]: manufacturers, software developers and computing hardware,
including AT&T, BT Group PLC, China Mobile, Deutsche
• switching equipment: BRAS (Broadband Remote Access Telekom AG, KDDI Corporation, NTT Corporation, Orange,
Server), routers, NAT (Network Address Translation) Telefonica S.A., Verizon UK Ltd., Amdocs Software Systems
functions; Ltd, Alcatel Lucent, Cisco Systems, Citrix Systems Inc.,
France Telecom S.A., Hewlett-Packard, IBM Europe, Intel
• mobile radiotelephone network nodes: MME (Mobility
Management Module), SCSF (Smart Client Software

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Corporation Ltd, Juniper Networks, Nokia Solutions and The SDN concept is primarily aimed at unifying the network
Networks, Vodafone Group Services plc., ZTE Corporation. infrastructure that provides data transmission and routing.
Currently, the application of the NFV concept to the Currently, SDN solutions are used mainly for building
implementation of the following functions is of particular corporate networks (including geographically distributed ones)
interest: and data center networks. Plans for their use in Telecom
• functional analogs of P, PE, and CPE nodes; operators’ networks are limited for the following reasons:
• NAT and BRAS functions of IP networks;
• lack of equipment switches and corresponding controllers
• CDN; of the required performance on the market;
• IMS platforms;
• core network of mobile radio communications. • the transition to SDN requires replacement of the currently
used network equipment, which entails additional capital
In Fig. 5 physical and logical machines are shown. costs;
• the need for retraining of personnel responsible for the
deployment and maintenance of networks.
In general, the proposed solutions usually support the
functions necessary for building transport packet networks. At
the same time, their limited scalability and performance do not
allow at this stage to use these solutions for building large-
scale transport operator communication networks.
For a comparison of an SDN switch with a regular one, see
Fig. 5. Physical and logical NFV machines
Table I.

There are various options for implementing NFV, such as: TABLE I. COMPARISON OF AN SDN SWITCH WITH A NON-SDN SWITCH
Name SDN switch Non-SDN switch
• Hardware (HW) servers, VIM (Virtualized Working The SDN switch is Non-SDN switch works
Infrastructure Manager) software, and VNF software environment specially made for SDN independently of the rest of
from the same manufacturer; networks the network equipment
Data The OpenFlow switch Packet forwarding and
• HW of the same manufacturer, VIM+VNF pairs of transmission separates the data path high-level routing are
other different manufacturers; path from the management located on the same device
path
• VNF of one manufacturer, HW+VIM pairs of other Сonvenience Programming the To program the switch: log
different manufacturers; switch: send commands in to the command line, and
via OpenFlow then configure. it via the
• HW, VIM, and VNF from different manufacturers; messages. command line

• HW, VIM, and VNF come from different Despite the fact that it is more recent than the SDN
manufacturers, but VIM from different manufacturers concept, mobile operators are considering the possibility of
are integrated into a single VIM, and so on. implementing NFV solutions in the short and medium term.
The novelty of the NFV concept, the incompleteness of This is due to the following features of the concept:
their standardization, the complex horizontal and vertical
division of functions in virtualization solutions between • no need to decommission successfully used equipment
different manufacturers require in-depth research of the ahead of schedule;
functionality of these solutions, their performance, security in • the introduction of NFV, according to market participants,
terms of security breaches to determine the possibility and should lead to a reduction in capital and operating costs
feasibility of their practical application on public associated with individual services;
communication networks of different types, levels and scales.
• NFV implementation may be limited and gradual;
IV. NETWORKS TRANSITION TO NEW TECHNOLOGIES AND • unlike SDN solutions, virtualization solutions already have
ARCHITECTURES a SDN well-established application practice related to
The NFV and SDN concepts involve a transition from cloud and other solutions.
using specialized communication tools installed in networks of Equipment manufacturers see attractive opportunities in
the appropriate type, to transferring their functions to a unified connection with these technologies, both for fixed-line and
computing infrastructure, simplifying hardware devices and mobile radiotelephone operators. In addition, the IoT (Internet
using open standards and protocols to ensure compatibility [8]. of Things) and 5G networks are becoming catalysts for the
At the same time, according to ETSI, the NFV and SDN adoption of NFV/SDN technologies, as the scale of IoT and
concepts are largely complementary, but at the same time the bandwidth requirements of 5G networks are undoubtedly
independent, each of them can be implemented separately [9]. contributing to the growing demand for NFV/SDN solutions.

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 Leading Telecom operators in testing and implementing network. The problem of improving the reliability of the
NFV/SDN solutions include, first of all, American and transport network should be solved by increasing the level of
European companies: AT&T, Orange, Verizon, CenturyLink, connectivity and providing redundancy at the network and
BT, DT, Vodafone and Telefonica. physical levels.
The SDN architecture according to ONF (Open Providing redundancy of the transport network at the
Networking Foundation) is shown in Fig. 6. physical level can be achieved by introducing an active optical
layer on the transport network by installing a ROADM
The next step is promising, but difficult – the transition in (Reconfigurable Optical Add-Drop Multiplexer) with a
carrier networks to integrated management for several layers specialized control system or support for the Generalized Multi-
based on SDN principles, in particular, to joint management of Protocol Label Switching (GMPLS) Protocol and the ASON
elements of the IP and optical levels; now operators use SDN (Automatically Switched Optical Network) architecture.
in isolation for optical and IP networks.
To optimize redundancy at the network level of the
IP/MPLS network (Fig. 7), the main and backup
Label Switching Paths (LSP) must be built automatically. To
automatically create tunnels with reserved resources in the
IP/MPLS network, you must provide support for the RSVP-TE
(Resource Reservation Protocol - Traffic Engineering) protocol.

Fig. 6. SDN architecture (ONF)

The transition in communication networks to new

technologies and architectures allows to:
• increase the transmission speed in communication Fig. 7. IP/MPLS network architecture
networks;
Increasing the level of connectivity of the transport
• increase the number of serviced endpoints; network at the physical level is achieved by building new lines
and installing new nodes using ROADM technology.
• ensure guaranteed quality of network operations and
services provided. In the modern world, cloud computing is widely used,
which allows for high-speed processing of large amounts of
At the same time, communication network operators will data. Cloud technologies provide for virtualization of
solve the following tasks that are relevant to them: computing resources, i.e. performing calculations on
• shorter implementation time for new services and geographically remote and distributed serve
applications;
V. BENEFITS OF SDN IN OPTICAL NETWORKS
• creating a unified communication network management
system; It is important to note the change in the functions of optical
transport networks, which previously served only to provide
• reduced operating and capital costs for upgrading high-speed transmission between service network nodes.
communication networks;
Modern managed transport networks also perform the
• optimization of the number of service personnel. functions of traffic distribution, connection scaling, and
To fulfill these tasks, Telecom operators must actively network resiliency. Therefore, in addition to increasing the
bring fiber-optic networks to subscribers, increase the capacity speed of optical channels, the development of transport
of fiber-optic networks using DWDM (Dense Wavelength networks is carried out in the direction of implementing full-
Division Multiplexing) systems. In the future, increasing the fledged network functions, which are implemented at the
transmission speed and optimizing the use of bandwidth can physical level of the OSI (Open Systems Interconnection)
be achieved by implementing the SDN concept in optical model. Hierarchical organization of optical channel data in
transport networks SDN [5]. managed OTN (Optical Transport Networks) technology
allows to manage smaller modules than was possible in the
An important requirement for Telecommunication earlier ASON technology, where switching was possible only
networks should be ensuring the reliability of the transport at the optical channel level.

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 For the successful OTN implementation, which can argued that it is possible to use all the features of the OTN
significantly improve the overall efficiency of only when SDN technology is implemented on the networks.
Telecommunications networks, it is necessary to solve a Currently, the application of virtualization principles in
number of technical issues. For example, encapsulating the telecommunication networks for the purpose of virtualization
client traffic of packet networks with statistical multiplexing of communication functions is considered promising.
in the equipment of optical networks with time multiplexing is
a task on the solution of which the efficiency of the managed 4) SDN reduces the net management expenditure required
optical transport network depends largely. for the whole network and the cost components of operational
expenditure.
Operational Expenditure (OE) of the SDN-network goes
down when resources are used optimally (use of less amount In future works on this topic authors will propose
of power required for the operations). SDN/NFV networks and controller placement optimization.

The general expression for OE without taking into account REFERENCES

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