SD-WAN

Today’s communication systems are fundamental to business success and, as a result, customers of both service providers (SPs) and managed service providers (MSPs) are putting more and more pressure on networks, demanding ongoing increases in control and flexibility.

It is widely understood that first-wave SD-WAN was conceived as an OTT solution, driven by two fundamental assumptions: the underlying network is both insecure and unreliable. Based on these assumptions, SD-WAN solutions have developed their functions to frequently assess network quality and define ultra-responsive solutions in instances of quality degradation.

These assumptions, and the functions created in response have, however, created a mode of SD-WAN that is problematic and unsustainable.

We’re in a new era of networking expectations. Driven by major digital transformation projects at the enterprise level, SD-WAN technology has emerged as a compelling solution to satisfy demands for increasingly evolved networks. Its greater flexibility, programmability and control are all highly desirable functions which enable service providers to ensure the performance quality, and efficiency of business-critical networks.

Interesting similarities can be observed between SD-WAN and NFV. NFV aimed at ending the reign of monolithic solutions, with software and hardware decoupling, but also with the use of open APIs that facilitate the ability to pick, choose and replace vendors as necessary. The hope was that increased competition and commodity hardware would drive costs down. This is however not a particularly shiny prospect for vendors.

If you think about it, SD-WAN is also about breaking monoliths: service provider offers. From this perspective, the managed service offer is split into discrete components: connectivity, hardware, WAN/LAN devices, VPN/security and operations. Enterprise customers can theoretically source each item independently and benefit from choice and competition. As a result, a large community of SD-WAN advocates aggressively target service providers, accusing them of offering less and charging more; in other words ripping off enterprise customers. This is equally not a shiny prospect for service providers.

The right answer for CSPs is not necessarily to fully embrace the current offerings of the main SD-WAN players. It may be part of the answer, but not the full one. As with vendors for NFV, this turmoil is forcing service providers to reconsider the value and strategy for each individual component of their offer (connectivity, hardware, operations, etc.

Let’s start with connectivity and VPN. Many SD-WAN vendors build their business case on saving MPLS costs. If you are a CSP and can serve your customer with MPLS easily, this is just a bargaining game. Why SD-WAN then? Just call your service provider sales rep! Many commentators now admit that MPLS is not dead but SD-WAN has highlighted how un-ideal it is: if you need to build a global VPN with branches in Mexico, South-East Asia, etc., those MPLS links become awfully expensive and slow to deploy. This is where it makes sense for CSPs to adopt Over-The-Top VPN technologies as proposed by the mainstream SD-WAN solutions. In other words, service providers do not need full-blown SD-WAN technologies to remain competitive so long as the customer demand is limited to “same as before, but lower cost”.

Of course, there is more to SD-WAN than just building a network overlay: such as being able to easily enforce application policies, monitor network and application performance. In my opinion, this should be viewed as another layer of services that can be offered at a premium cost. Historically, service providers have been extremely successful in outsourcing networks for enterprise customers, especially in Europe. The key ingredients were: a one-stop shopping experience and being a price leader for this outsourcing. The contention here is that they can strike back against SD-WAN DIY and System Integrators. Being a price leader implies they need entry-level Over-The-Top offers, but also a rich set of options to upsell so that enterprises remain attracted to their main marketing asset: a one-stop shopping experience.

I know this question reads like comparing apples with oranges. In fact, I want to compare a uCPE managed with NETCONF versus a uCPE managed as an OpenStack compute node. First, it’s worth looking at why people think using OpenStack is a good idea.

OpenStack is THE open-source Virtualization Infrastructure Manager (VIM). As operators virtualize their data centers, OpenStack is pretty much the only solution if they want to move away from VMware. As operators move to OpenStack, they can extend it to manage Virtualized Network Functions (VNFs) in branches. The benefit looks obvious: one team in charge of both data center and branch virtualization and a streamlined software layer to deploy and manage.

In many ways, NETCONF vs OpenStack is a political decision. One that determines whether a combination of DevOps culture and IT teams will take power.

OpenStack: Free as in freedom, not as in price

OpenStack is not a piece of software, but rather a distribution of modules with heterogeneous documentation. More importantly, putting OpenStack into production requires the gathering of a critical mass of skilled experts. You need a good set of experienced architects who know what works, what does not and what will fail if you do things in a certain way. One well-known issue with OpenStack, for example, concerns planning upgrades. This is not a trivial job; VMware still makes a lot of money and Redhat or Mirantis put massive effort into packaging and supporting OpenStack.[1]

OpenStack was conceived for data centers

Using OpenStack for uCPE is about deploying VNFs where it makes sense, i.e. the trade-off between cost, latency and security. It implies VNFs would be seamlessly chained between a datacenter and branches. Extending OpenStack to the branch, however, poses challenges, the biggest of which is security. When VNFs are contained within a data center, the security perimeter is clearly defined. In contrast, deploying VNF in branches means the security boundaries are more open-ended as connections can be made to new customer branches. In this case, openness and security often contradict each other.

It’s striking the number of service providers that have recently started promoting SD-WAN offers, especially given that there is little evidence amongst them of its commercial success. Popularity and perceived demand are high in the telecoms world, but it seems few service providers have yet to really win over end-users.

Just another example of industry hype? Or is there more to SD-WAN than meets the eye?

There certainly is. Or rather, there will be soon. The increasing move towards a true white-box approach will undoubtedly be the driver in realizing SD-WAN deployments at the CSP and generating real value behind the hype. So, why have they lagged?

The SD-WAN romance

The appeal of SD-WAN is its software-based, flexible and fully programmable nature. The premise of a service delivered using Common-Off-The-Shelf (COTS) hardware offers the illusion of freedom. COTS hardware suggests that users are no longer locked into one solution, as new Virtual Network Functions (VNFs) can be added from a broad choice of third-party vendors.

As there is no ‘one-size-fits-all’ solution, the end-user can be critical and selective of the services it chooses, based on its own budget and requirements. In turn, this means they can benefit from competition, as vendors can battle to deliver more innovative, cost-effective services.

Pravin Mirchandani, CMO, OneAccess (an EKINOPS brand), dissects a poignant phrase coined at this week’s SDN NFV World Congress.

On day one of this year’s SDN NFV World Congress in The Hague, I was intrigued by a phrase used in the keynote: ‘fake virtualization’.

The speaker, Jehanne Savi, Executive Leader, All-IP & On-Demand Networks programs at Orange, used it to describe to describe the status of the industry. It was a powerful accusation but, aside from being tuned in to the zeitgeist of our times, what did she really mean?

Did she mean vendors were trumpeting false claims about their solutions? Or was she suggesting that they were failing to disaggregate network functions properly? Perhaps she was pointing to a failure in software abstraction, or a lack of software-defined control or, even worse, a recourse to proprietary APIs or protocols. The longer I thought about it, the more interpretations sprang to mind.

Her true meaning became clear towards the end of her keynote, when she used the words ‘vertical solutions’ as a direct translation for her neologism. Only then did the links between her various arguments appear. This wasn’t a single instance of fake news or testimony, but rather a broader lamentation on the lock-in nature of mainstream virtualization solutions; on the industry’s failure to enable an open, multi-vendor landscape that would give operators the choice and flexibility they sought to build new competitive solutions.

Explore the combination of technologies that enable remote provisioning and management of the uCPE and the VNFs this powerful new device supports.

A Universal Customer Premises Equipment (uCPE) consists of both software and hardware components to create a small virtualization platform at the customer premises and which is capable of running multiple Virtual Network Functions (VNFs) in a local service chain. This is similar to running Virtualized Network Functions in the datacentre but at a smaller scale. This enables Communication Service Providers (CSPs) to disaggregate software and hardware at the CPE level and provides them with unprecedented flexibility to run any type of service on the same commoditized hardware platform.

The services delivered by this programmable end-user device are in general controlled by Next Generation Service Orchestrators, who take care of the service configuration aspects of the delivered services. Another level of Orchestration concerns the deployment of the uCPE in the field. One of the challenges is to minimize its deployment cost using zero-touch provisioning. Pushing a new configuration to a uCPE is more complicated than to legacy CPEs because not only the configuration of the uCPE needs to be pushed to the device, but also the service chaining topology and the VNF images with their initial configurations. Using the NETCONF/YANG protocol however it is possible to push the complete initial configuration to the uCPE including the service chaining configuration and the VNF images with their initial start-up configuration. The initial communication with the provisioning server can be achieved using the NETCONF Call Home functionality, which allows the CPE to identify itself to the provisioning server and receive the correct configuration associated with the customer where the device is installed.

With zero-touch provisioning it is possible to install a uCPE and its configuration in an automated way. In many cases, however, end-to-end orchestration systems don’t support zero-touch provisioning yet or provisioning systems are not in place or sufficiently mature to support this level of automation.

In addition to the OneAccess-branded uCPE hardware (OVP or Open Virtualized Platform) and software (LIM or Local Infrastructure Manager), EKINOPS also offers OneManage to provide a solution for zero-touch provisioning of uCPEs based on a service catalog. OneManage supports a northbound interface to interface with OSS/BSS systems to receive customer-related data associated with a new uCPE deployment. In this way OneManage is an infrastructure orchestrator or sub-orchestrator, taking care of the provisioning of the uCPEs and the management of the installed uCPE base.

A new focus on simplicity and standardization holds the key, says Pravin Mirchandani, CMO, OneAccess.

At the recent Zero-Touch and Carrier Automation Congress in Madrid, I was reminded of a quote from George Westerman of MIT:

“When digital transformation is done right, it’s like a caterpillar turning into a butterfly, but when done wrong, all you have is a really fast caterpillar.”

One of the most debated topics at the show was how to deal with issues of complexity when enabling automation in operators’ networks. The current processes designed to manage these networks have been designed to make human intervention and management relatively efficient. In the new world of automation, however, even minimal human intervention is problematic. Despite the industry’s best efforts, translating complex human decision-making into a computer-readable, algorithm-friendly process remains a real challenge.

Redesigning around simplicity

Indeed multiple speakers at the show agreed that trying to automate a complex set of processes was actually the wrong approach, and that a fresh take was needed. Starting again, to define new, simpler processes which focus on enabling zero-touch provisioning and automation, offers a more logical and achievable route forward.

When looking at the virtualization landscape in its broader sense I can’t help seeing that the real problem is agility or rather lack of it.

Take a look at SDN, whose main premise is to separate control from the data plane and thereby achieve high agility for its users. Same thing for NFV: abstract the software from the hardware and then combine and deploy software functions at will for high agility. So the operators, at least the bigger ones who have the least agility, are investing megabucks to deliver on the twin promises of SDN and NFV. What’s frustrating for them is that they are doing so lamentably slowly and in a decidedly non-agile manner.

In a sense it’s not so surprising. In effect, the operators are trying to re-engineer 15 years of painstakingly built managed services processes in a very short period of time. And they are doing so using a combination of new operational and management techniques, new albeit commonly available hardware, re-packaged software and co-opting their existing set of waterfall processes and organisational silos. This is like pressing on the accelerator with the handbrake on. Some, e.g. Verizon and belatedly AT&T, are trying to loosen the rigid structure of their organisations to create a more agile decision-making process and a Devops culture where network specialists and IT folk combine to break down internal barriers and loosen their internal disk-brakes.

It’s when we take a look at the arrival of SD-WAN that we see the real impact of lack of agility. SD-WAN vendors position their wares to enterprises with self-select portals, centralised policy control and the ability to take advantage of cheaper Internet links to deal with all the Cloud-based, Internet services that are swamping their traditional operator-provided WAN connections. This puts control and thus agility in the hands of the enterprises and this is precisely what they want.

The response of the operators to SD-WAN however is telling. As opposed to SDN and NFV, where they are re-engineering their processes with open APIs to (slowly) deliver on the promise of virtualization, they have taken a very different tack with SD-WAN. For the most part, they have:

With backing from major NFV/SDN projects and industry organizations, NETCONF, the client/server protocol designed to configure network devices more clearly and effectively, will soon become ubiquitous. Operators who migrate to NETCONF can both future-proof their operations for NFV and can also reap some of short-term benefits of automation, today.

Why NETCONF/YANG?

By addressing the shortcomings of existing network configuration protocols like Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP) and Command Line Interface (CLI), NETCONF was developed to enable more efficient and effective network management. SNMP has long been cast off by operators and CSPs as hopelessly complicated and difficult to decipher. CLI may be readable by a network engineer, but it is prone to human error and can lead to vendor lock-in, since propriertary implementations often mean that only one vendor’s element management system can manage their network elements.

NETCONF, on the other hand, is designed specifically with programmability in mind, making it perfect for an automated, software-based environment. It enables a range of functions to be delivered automatically in the network, while maintaining flexibility and vendor independence (by removing the network’s dependence on device-specific CLI scripts). NETCONF also offers network management that is not only human readable, but also supports operations like transaction-based provisioning, querying, editing and deletion of configuration data.

YANG is the telecom-specific modelling language that makes NETCONF useful, by describing device configuration and state information that can be transported via the NETCONF protocol. The configuration is plain text and human-readable, plus it’s easy to copy and paste and compare between devices and services. Together, NETCONF and YANG can deliver a thus far elusive mix of predictability and automation.

NFV needs NETCONF

What’s even more powerful is that NETCONF and YANG combined offer the flexibility needed to manage both virtual and physical devices. This means that operators can get going with NETCONF now, before they start ripping out old devices and replacing them with white boxes. This is a necessary investment in the future; as we look forward to a virtualized networking environment, where network functions are spun up and changed continuously, the high level of automation enabled by NETCONF/YANG is not just preferable, it is essential.

A collection of thoughts has been spinning in my head over the last few weeks based on various customer visits, presentations and panel debates I have seen or participated in recently and they have collectively formed into a common notion, that of dissonance. These reflections have come about as a result of number of unresolved issues that are either being ignored or are falling between the cracks as we all grapple with the complexities of introducing virtualization.

I’ll start with MANO. Many of us know that there is a competition between Open Source MANO sponsored principally by Telefonica’s I+D entity (its research and development arm) and ONAP (Open Network Automation Platform), which combines the outputs of AT&T’s homegrown MANO system called ECOMP and Open-O (Open Orchestrator Project) into a common open-source project. Setting aside the architectural differences between these two major MANO initiatives and their respective levels of industry take-up, what’s increasingly obvious is that both are horrendously complex and quite frankly beyond the means of most operators to implement. Open-source only saves the cost of acquisition, not of integration and deployment. That’s why many operators, both large and small, are sitting on the sidelines waiting for a viable solution to present itself. This might quite possibly be in the form of MANO-as-a-service, which is already attracting the attention of business managers at professional services outfits and even venture-capital funding, which reminds me that Sun Tzu said in the Art of War: “In the midst of chaos, there is also opportunity”.

Another dissonance that strikes me is that between the CTO offices in the vanguard of introducing virtualization and their own business managers. It’s not just that virtualization is proving horribly expensive to introduce and therefore difficult to convincingly flesh out an ROI spreadsheet. Rather the technical people have become so absorbed by the scope and scale of the technical challenges in front of them that they have collectively lost sight of the end goal: how to market virtualized network services and deliver benefits to their end-customers. A recent big theme at conferences has been the challenges involved in on-boarding new VNFs, over a 100 in some cases. My questions though are: who needs all this choice; how can customers without big IT budgets select which are the right ones for them; what is the benefit for these end-users as opposed to what they are doing today (see my recent blog entitled: ‘Hello from the Other Side: The Customer Benefits of NFV’); and indeed what’s in it for the operators – how are they going to make money when it’s not at all clear which VNFs they can effectively sell to the volume part of the enterprise market as managed services, i.e. where they make money?

There is also increasing dissonance on the vendor side – and recently several vendors have openly voiced their frustrations on this point - virtualizing products requires investment and until NFV starts moving out of the labs into volume service deployments we all are investing money based on the hope of generating payback at some uncertain point in the future.

The other huge dissonance is that all the investment in next-generation virtualization efforts has eaten most of the IT resources for introducing new services and platforms for the operators mainstream existing business. The number of delayed service launches atoperators due to ‘IT budget issues’ or ‘lack of available personnel’ is now an industry-wide phenomenon and delaying cost reduction and business generation service initiatives in the market. This is ironic as virtualization is meant to accelerate service delivery, not stall it.

Operators should start their NFV charm offensive now says Pravin Mirchandani, CMO, EKINOPS.

Surprisingly few of today’s conversations about NFV address how a virtualized infrastructure will benefit end-user businesses. If operators and CSPs want to bring their customers across without resistance, however, they must also consider how to position the benefits of NFV, particularly since some may view its new technologies as an unsolicited risk.

Flexible provisioning is the big persuader. Most businesses experience peak traffic at infrequent and predictable times. Despite only needing this level of service occasionally, however, they have had no option but to sign contracts that deliver this maximum capacity all the time. Operators haven’t had the flexibility to deliver anything else. Virtualization can change all of this.

This is big news because firms of all shapes and sizes are caught in this trap. Pizza companies do 90% of their business on Friday and Saturday nights, yet provision for these peaks seven days a week. This is a huge overhead, particularly for a national networked outfit like Domino’s. Other businesses, particularly retail e-commerce sites, are governed by seasonality. The spikes in online sales triggered by Black Friday and the January sales are well documented. Hotels beef up their network capacity for four intensive months of high occupancy but, under today’s model, must provision equally for the quieter eight.

Virtualization can address this need. A software-defined infrastructure will give customers access to a portal through which they can self-select the services they need and specify when they need them. The programmatic benefits of virtualization enable operators to spin them up automatically. Compare that to the weeks of notice that an operator currently needs to install a new line and the end-user benefits come into stark focus.

his blog will provide a quick introduction and comparison of some of the available acceleration technologies common on white-box CPE, sometimes also referred to as “universal CPE” or uCPE.

Classical premises equipment has traditionally relied on specialized network processors to deliver network processing performance. Standard x86 hardware however, which was originally designed for more general purpose compute tasks, especially when used together with a “plain vanilla” Linux implementation, will result in disappointing performance levels for data communication purposes unless expensive x86 CPUs are used. To address this concern, a number of software and hardware acceleration techniques have been introduced to meet the performance requirements imposed on today’s CPEs.

The processing context for white-box CPE is an environment that provides a small virtualized infrastructure at the customer premises, where multiple VMs (Virtual Machines) that host VNFs (Virtual Network Functions) are created and hosted in a Linux environment, Service chaining is established between the different VMs, resulting in a final customer service which can be configured and adapted through a customer portal. In this setup VNFs and VMs need to communicate either to the outside world through a NIC (Network Interface Card) or to another VNF for service chaining.

DPDK (Data Plane Development Kit)
In the case of white-box CPEs, DPDK provides a framework and set of techniques to accelerate data packet processing and circumvent the bottlenecks encountered in standard Linux processing. DPDK is implemented in software and basically bypasses the Linux kernel and network stack to establish a high-speed data path for rapid packet processing. Its great advantage is to produce significant performance improvements without hardware modifications. Although DPDK was originally developed for Intel-based processor environments, it is now also available on other processors such as ARM.

AES-NI (Advanced Encryption Standard New Instructions)

This is an extension to the x86 instruction set for Intel processors to accelerate the speed of encrypting and decrypting data packets using the AES standard. Without this instruction set, the encryption and decryption process would take a lot more time since it is a very compute-intensive task. The encryption is done at the data plane level and is used to secure data communications over Wide Area Networks.

One of the big attractions of NFV is that it gives operators a chance to break free of single vendor contracts and establish greater control over the future development of their networks.

Genuinely ‘open NFV’ gives operators the ability to change tack according to technical and commercial developments. It enables them to shop around for best of breed solutions and blend a mixture of, say, migration-oriented hybrid solutions with white or grey-box CPEs and connect them all to their choice of orchestrator. It also dramatically improves their negotiating power.

Yet, despite appearances, few NFV vendors practice ‘genuinely open NFV’ and instead disguise how they intend to close and lock the front door once their customer has stepped inside.

There are five common traps that vendors set for operators as they entice them toward ‘open NFV’ contracts:

#1 Charging for third-party connections

While huge progress has been made this year toward the development of virtualized services, a variety of challenges remain before widespread service roll-out can commence. 2017 will be the year that the industry takes positive steps to overcome these barriers, says Pravin Mirchandani, CMO at OneAccess Networks, who shares his five key predictions for the year ahead.

#1 Europe will stay on the sidelines as USA and Japan push on

We will see virtualized services start to roll out, principally in the USA, and to a lesser extent in Japan through NTT. While everyone remains sure that the way forward is virtualization, the industry is still figuring out how to solve the multiple technical, commercial and organizational challenges posed by migration.

Operators will be closely watching AT&T and its Domain 2.0 program and keeping an eye on Verizon too, in a bid to learn lessons about how to implement NFV. Europe’s hard-pressed operators, in particular, will mostly stay parked in ‘watch and learn’ mode, continuing with RFx, proof of concepts and trials. In fact, we’re unlikely to see any virtualized services roll out across Europe in 2017. Compelling business cases are harder to assemble in the European continent and, until these are squared away, operators will prefer to observe how US and Japanese trail-blazers facilitate service migration and preserve their choices – both major factors driving current and near-term investment decisions.

#2 NFV’s ROI equation will need to be cracked

Operators commonly expect that moving to SDN and NFV will enable cost reductions, through efficiency gains in network management and device consolidation. As they get closer to deployment, however, commercial reality is telling a different story, depending on the market segment being addressed.

One area where the ROI for white-box CPEs is easy to justify is appliance consolidation. If you can consolidate a number of proprietary appliances into a single white-box CPE then the CAPEX savings are clear. Chaining, for instance, a vRouter, a WAN optimizer and a next-generation firewall into one single x86 appliance (i.e. a white-box CPE) delivers immediately identifiable cost savings: one appliance instead of three is basically the formula and this is a commonly targeted combination. Combine this with the prospect of increased wallet share from large enterprises, which often run their networks themselves in do-it-yourself mode, and the large enterprise segment looks increasingly attractive for operators.

Let’s be clear, though: this is just a large enterprise play. SMBs and multi-site deployments for government or highly distributed organizations have no need for WAN optimization and little need for a next-generation firewall; the on-board firewall that comes with their router together with a PC-based anti-virus subscription and email antispam service are usually sufficient. As a result, anyone working on building business cases for white-box CPEs for the volume part of the market will attest that ROI a tough nut to crack.

The draw for this market segment is the potential to increase ARPU by making it easier and more flexible to use additional services through automated service delivery via virtualization.

In terms of hardware CAPEX, the cost of white-box CPE deployment outstrips that of traditional CPEs. For the large enterprise segment which often deploys multiple appliances, this cost increase is compensated by reducing the number of appliances. For other market segments, where a single CPE is more typically deployed, savings need to come from OPEX reductions or TCO savings. The latter, however, is notoriously difficult to calculate and is usually irrelevant in a context where staff reductions are difficult to achieve, particularly in a period of technology transition.

Live from the SDN World Congress Show in The Hague, Pravin Mirchandani, CMO, EKINOPS, reflects on the industry challenges steering the dialogue at this year’s conference.

In Gartner’s hype cycle, there is an inevitable time of disillusionment that follows the initial excitement of a new technology. At the SDN World Congress this feels different: although we have probably passed the peak of inflated expectations, there is less a trough of disillusionment, rather a set of major impediments that need to be cleared away in order to achieve the nirvana of SDN/NFV. Most actors can see what needs to be done and are steadfastly supporting the initial objectives but my impression is that breaking through to achieve the goals of network virtualization is like pushing through the famous glass ceiling. Though not created by prejudice, as in the traditional definition of glass ceiling, the barriers are real and there are many.

Glass Ceiling 1: Complexity One of the goals of software-defined networking is to reduce dependence on an army of network experts, who are difficult to recruit and retain, expensive to hire and prone to error. What’s clear is that what they do is indeed complex; and converting their expertise and processes into automated software processes and APIs is equally if not more complex, as there is a distinct lack of established practices and field-proven code to draw upon. Many of the speakers at SDN World Congress mentioned the issue of complexity and this was a constant theme in the corridor discussions. Laurent Herr, VP of OSS at Orange Business Services stated that Orange estimated it would take 20,000 man-days to convert their tens of IT systems to achieve virtualization.

Glass Ceiling 2: Culture Another common theme was the issue of culture. Telcos have been organised to deliver the ‘procure-design-integrate-deploy’ cycle for new services and have a well-established set of linear processes and organizational silos to achieve it. Introducing virtualized services however requires a DevOps culture based on agility, fast failing (anathema to the internal cultures of Telcos) and rapid assembly of multi-skilled teams (especially collaboration between network and IT experts) to deliver new outcomes, frequently, fast and reliably. Achieving a DevOps culture was one of the most frequently cited challenges by the Telco speakers at the Congress. Another common word they used was transformation.

Glass Ceiling 3: Lack of Expertise It’s difficult to estimate the number of engineers that really understand the principles and practices of virtualization but they probably number in the low hundreds across the globe. Given the ability of the vendors to pay better salaries, it’s a safe bet that the majority work for them rather than for the Telcos. Growing this number is difficult as it requires combining IT, programming and network skills. Creating collaborative teams helps but finding or training people to achieve mastery of the different skills is a challenge for the whole industry. This was more of a corridor conversation rather than openly cited by the speakers but it is a glass ceiling nevertheless.

In the racy world of CPE architecture, what virtualization-hungry service providers say they want isn’t always what they need, says Pravin Mirchandani, CMO, EKINOPS.

Alright, perhaps ‘racy’ is going a bit far, but as the virtualization industry moves out of ‘does it work’ and into ‘let’s make it happen’, pulses are certainly starting to quicken. Not least because service providers are having to make tough calls about how to architect their management and orchestration (MANO). Many of these decisions revolve around the deployment of virtualized network functions (VNFs), via some form of customer premises equipment (CPE).

Several ‘shades’ are emerging, each with their advantages and drawbacks.

The ‘NETCONF-enabled CPE’ model emulates what we have today: a fixed number of physical network functions (note: not virtual) are embedded into a traditional L3 multi-service access router. The key difference here is that the router, as its name suggests, supports the NETCONF management protocol and can, as result, be managed in a virtualized environment. In truth, this is a pretty rudimentary form of virtualization; the router can be managed by a next-generation OSS with NETCONF and its embedded physical functions can be turned on and off remotely, but that’s about it. The device is not reprogrammable, nor can its network functions be removed or replaced with alternatives. The market for this deployment model lies in two use-cases: Firstly, as a bridging solution enabling service providers to co-operate traditional and virtualized network services simultaneously, facilitating migration. Secondly, given that many of today’s VNFs are heavy and need considerable amounts of memory and processing resources in order to operate, the more flexible white-box alternatives are costly in comparison. Specialist vendors like OneAccess have been developing dedicated CPE appliances (with embedded PNFs) for years, where compact and efficient code has always been a design goal in order to keep appliance costs under control. For more conservative operators that are keen to get ‘in the game’, the proven reliability and comparative cost efficiency of this model can offset its relatively limited flexibility. Rome wasn’t built in a day and some operators will prefer to nail the centralized management and orchestration piece before investing heavily in pure-play virtualization appliances for the network’s edge.

A purer approach is to invest in a ‘thick branch CPE’ or, in other words, an x86-based white-box solution running Linux, onto which VNF packages can be either pre-loaded and, in the future, removed and replaced or even selected by customers via, say, a web portal. This approach delivers far greater flexibility and is truer to the original promise of NFV, in which the network’s functions and components can be dismantled and recomposed in order to adjust a service offer. The snag, however is that white-box CPEs come at a cost. More memory and more processing power mean more cash. That’s why the race is on to develop compact VNFs, so they can minimize processing requirements and, as a result, enable a limited spec white-box to do more, with less. Again, unsurprisingly, those ahead of the curve are VNF vendors that have the experience of wringing every last drop of performance out of compact and cost-efficient appliances, purpose-designed for operators and service providers.

In presentations at virtualization conferences, and in our discussions with operators and service providers, there remains a lot of confusion surrounding the terms ‘thick’ and ‘thin’ as they relate to customer premises equipment (CPE). This is because the terms are used interchangeably, to describe different market segments, the density of network functions as well as the nature of the CPE itself.

The roots of ‘thick’ and ‘thin’ comes from the term ‘thin client’; a popular reference to a lightweight computer or terminal that depends heavily on a server or server farm to deliver data processing and application support. This contrasts with the PC, which performs these roles independently, and was somewhat disparagingly referred to as a ‘fat client’, or, more neutrally, as a ‘thick client’.

This heritage is important as we look to provide a taxonomy of CPEs, which will hopefully aid our understanding of their respective roles in the delivery of virtualized network services.

Generically, CPE or ‘customer premises equipment’ refers to the equipment provided by a service provider that is then installed with its customers. Historically, CPE referred mainly to the supply of telephony equipment, but today the term encompasses a whole range of operator supplied equipment including routers, switches, voice gateways, set-top boxes as well as home networking adapters.

Thick CPE refers typically to a router or switch that provides network functions at the customer premises. There are now three main types: