Professional Documents
Culture Documents
OPNFV: AN UPDATE
Key Findings from Heavy Reading's June 2016
Study on "What Operators Think of OPNFV"
Key Findings......................................................................................................................................... 4
Conclusion............................................................................................................................................ 13
The survey followed a similar one that had been performed in November 2015. As such,
it brought to light some interesting trends regarding the forward progress of NFV.
The survey was completed by ninety (90) respondents from worldwide service providers
that varied in size from less than $50M USD in revenue to more than $5B USD. All
respondents were registered in Light Reading's database, and most had previously
participated in a study on open source solutions.
Many operator types were represented, including converged, mobile, fixed line, cloud
and cable. Respondents ranged from engineers and technical planners to corporate
management and strategists for research and development.
The survey results shed light on how OPNFV is accelerating NFV adoptions, including
OPNFV's role in shaping open source NFV, industry intent to leverage OPNFV output,
and the overall impact of OPNFV on the success of NFV. The data reveals an updated
look at the drivers, barriers, timelines and critical upstream integration needed in this
unique era of network transformation.
This information brief highlights some of the key lessons from the survey.1
1
The full set of slides showing the raw data for the report is available here from OPNFV's Resources Page, and there is
also a video of the survey results presented by veteran telecommunications industry analyst Roz Roseboro.
State
Stateof
ofNFV
NFVand
andOPNFV:
OPNFV:An
AnUpdate
Update 3
KEY FINDINGS
Fundamentally, this survey illustrates the notable
progress of NFV deployments and the primacy of
OPNFV in the fulfillment of NFV’s mission.
We have an NFV strategy but have not started executing it yet: 20%
While roughly one-third are still developing a strategy, fully 41% are either in proofs of
concept (PoCs) or production, and another 20% claim to have a solid strategy in place.
Data shows that only six percent of operators have no NFV strategy planned at all
The question then turns to the role of OPNFV in advancing this progression from strategy
to deployment: the survey revealed that 93% of network operators view OPNFV as
important to the success of NFV; they view it as either essential or important to the
telecom industry as a whole.
Marginally important: 7%
Essential: 32%
There was also an option, which no one selected, to say that OPNFV was not at all
relevant. Since all respondents found OPNFV important, it’s revealing that over half
(54%) said that they are actively following OPNFV, and all but 19% of the respondents are
actively contributing, or planning to contribute, to OPNFV (Figure 3).
Does not follow OPNFV, but that may change over time: 19%
All respondents who stated they were not following OPNFV indicated that they plan
to do so over time. There was an option—which no one selected—for respondents to
say that they had no plans to either follow or contribute to OPNFV.
Interoperability testing
Developing a reference
architecture
Promoting network operator
interests to upstream projects
Providing testing facilities
Helping converge
architectural concepts
Prototyping and fleshing
out concepts
0 5 10 15 20 25
Source: Heavy Reading, June 2016, n=90
Figure 4: Most Important Things that OPNFV is Doing
In one of the most interesting questions of the survey, and one that had not been asked
previously, Heavy Reading sought to determine how operators were planning to leverage
OPNFV. As Figure 5 shows, fully 97% reported that they plan to leverage the output of
OPNFV in some way.
No plans: 3%
11% of respondents said they will use knowledge in technical evaluations—this may
indicate an interest in pursuing best-of-breed solutions. This is an option that OPNFV
enhances by facilitating flexible choices in open source components and their
configuration into unique platform scenarios.4
Between the November 2015 and June 2016 surveys, the benefits that operators
are expecting from OPNFV remained fairly consistent. The top two responses—rapid
deployment assistance and easier integration—were again the only choices selected by
over 50% of the respondents.
2
PNFV has addressed this in part through the Pharos Project, which develops an OPNFV lab infrastructure
O
that is geographically and technically diverse. There are 13 Pharos Labs hosted by the Linux Foundation and
Community companies
3
or a discussion of operators experimenting with OPNFV to evaluate different NFVI choices, see the OPNFV Plugfest
F
Report, which contains examples of NFVI PoCs for virtualized IMS and EPC end-to-end systems.
4
A list of the pre-built scenarios for the Brahmaputra release can be found on this testing discussion page.
Easier integration
Accelerated adoption
Higher-quality
products
Increased
understanding of
underlying
technologies
Reduced risk
Other
0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90% 100%
One interesting change, however, is that these choices "switched places" as to which
was selected more often, quite possibly indicating that deployments are moving farther
along, and that operators see OPNFV as a main driver for this. The other major benefits—
integration, adoption, product quality, better technical understanding and reduced risk—
all remained quite consistent.
OpenStack
OpenSwitch
KVM
OpenDaylight
ONOS
DPDK
Open Contrail
Ceph
0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90% 100%
As many OPNFV contributors also work on these upstream projects, OPNFV may be
considered a reliable bellwether as to the continued relevance of those projects—it will
be interesting to see how operator perceptions change as they get more involved with
upstream projects and with OPNFV.
A question that was asked for the first time in the June 2016 survey was how likely it is
that OPNFV will deliver on its promises. As Figure 8 shows, nearly one-quarter of the
respondents are very confident that this two-year-old project will fulfill its promise.
Not confident: 1%
Perhaps more importantly, fully 99% (all but one respondent!) have some degree of
confidence that the goals of OPNFV will be realized.
Security was cited as the top technology that OPNFV should investigate. Recognizing
its growing importance in the community, last year OPNFV formed a security working
group dedicated to improving security through architecture, documentation, code
review, upstream interwork with other groups, vulnerability management and security
research. Their work provides an umbrella group focused on developing security-
centric functions within the ecosystem, including a proposal to deliver a security
management system for OPNFV.
Given the growing interest and work on the topic of orchestration, the OPNFV board in
December of 2015 decided to lift any initial scope restraints that would have restricted
work in this area. In line with how operators believe OPNFV should engage MANO
(Figure 9), OPNFV is now proposing industry-wide APIs in support of orchestration,
demonstrating integration of MANO projects into the OPNFV platform, and providing
upstream feedback to MANO components.
0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80
Source: Heavy Reading, June 2016, n=89
Along these lines, and naturally affecting the future direction of OPNFV, are the issues
that carriers are currently struggling with (Figure 10).
VNF/MANO integration
Automation tools
(e.g., Chef/Puppet)
Containers
0 10 20 30 40 50 60
Source: Heavy Reading, June 2016, n=88
Multivendor VNF integration is the only selection made by more than half of the
respondents, but other key questions include where and when to use OpenStack versus
proprietary choices for cloud infrastructure, and how to bring about better automation
workflows, including DevOps.
As operators continue towards NFV adoption, it's natural that competing company
agendas would emerge. The issue of OPNFV's own strategy showing up here is
interesting: as an open source integration project that interacts heavily with many
upstream projects, it's natural that the strategy may evolve as the state of NFV
infrastructure matures. It's noteworthy, however, that "unclear strategy" has a much lower
score than it did in the November 2015 survey, and that the mission is coming into focus.
It's also interesting that "concerns about open source technology" and "lack of vendor
buy in" remain highly ranked as perceived challenges. Still, open source is universally
accepted among the largest carriers, who need more innovative solutions and need them
faster. Smaller service providers are quickly (but admittedly not instantly) following suit.
Similarly, vendors are aware of the importance of open source to their customers: they
are providing more viable solutions using open source, even if the issues of what to
continue handling in a proprietary, rather than open, manner are naturally continuing
to be sorted out. All in all, the challenges faced by OPNFV are actually the essential
challenges faced by carriers and vendors, and inform the very issues that OPNFV is
designed to address.
Operators view OPNFV as critical to the telecommunications industry, and see open
source integration as vitally important. They are moving faster towards adopting
strategies—and in many cases, building PoCs or actually deploying services—for an NFV-
based future. OPNFV is helping operators make this a reality.
In fewer than two years, OPNFV is earning an unprecedented level of trust in terms of
both direction and ability to execute over time. Forward progress remains very steady
as the benefits begin to be realized, and as vendor and carrier strategies and agendas
continue to crystallize.
The next steps for OPNFV are to make progress in the areas of security and MANO, and
work has already been starting in these areas throughout 2016. For information on how
to help define these crucial areas and move the cause of NFV forward, please consult the
How to Participate and the Resources pages at www.opnfv.org.