Fulfilling NFV goals with Blue Planet SDN/NFV, Lanner’s HTCA NFVi platforms


The Network functions virtualization (NFV) movement came about as a way for communication service providers (CSPs) to overcome issues with vendor lock-in, new service deployment agility, flexibility and management and organization (MANO) issues. With major collaborative open source projects and the largest telecoms on the forefront of NFV development, major strides have been made to complete a solution in line with ETSI´s initial whitepaper

Yet today, many solutions deployed still struggle with interoperability issues between Virtualized network functions (VNFs), network functions virtualization infrastructure (NFVi), Virtualized infrastructure managers (VIMs) and even large open source projects. Prominent NFV platforms often times are missing open API’s, or create issues with closed components built into the system.

NFV to achieve this cornerstone of NFV and maintain carrier-grade reliability requires an environment of standards, technologies and hardware openly working together to create the flexible and seamlessly automated network NFV promises.

Blue planet + Lanner HTCA 6200/6600

Blue Planet, Lanner and an assortment of like-minded organizations within the blue orbit ecosystem together provide a level of interoperability and freedom designed to mirror ETSI’s guidelines (see Illustration below). From open and flexible REST-ful APIs — to customized, hardened versions of open source projects like the open network operating system (ONOS).

Accelerating network transformation through simplified integrations, open collaboration and API’s gives service providers and network operators unimpaired access to smart business decisions through full network agility and interoperability –providing the peace of mind NFV has promised.

A hardened version of ONOS is the heart of the SDN controller, providing centralized   control of dataflow. With NFV and edge NFV computing on the forefront and SDN taking tangible form in Central offices re-architected as datacenters (CORD) a unified and capable solution for complete MANO (management and organization) to provide the end-to-end interoperability required.

 

Blue Planet Multi-Domain Service Orchestration for SDN/NFV/WAN/xxx

Blue planets use of a Multi-Domain Service Orchestration (MDSO) with open APIs and standardized architecture enables the use of third party SDN controllers, Domain controllers, vCPE platforms as well as integrating with Ciena’s Optical packet network products. This creates an end-to-end solution providing all of the necessary systems from core, to access and edge networks. MDSO integrates seamlessly and by abstracting the complexity of underlying domains and it allows the automation of end-to-end orchestration and lifecycle management for services.

  1. Modular and programmable structure supports control of multiple technologically diverse domains: cloud, multi-layer WAN, NFV, IP/MPLS, and more
  2. TOSCA-based templates allow for rapid network services programmability and self-service in operating the network
  3. Integrates with Ciena and third-party SDN controllers, element/network management systems, and cloud management platforms
  4. Supports service chains comprised of physical network elements and SDN/NFV-enabled virtual components across multiple domains
  5. Standardized and automated service delivery via repeatable, simplified, and auditable processes
  6. Enables delivery of compelling services such as NFV-enabled Ethernet NaaS
  7. Breaks down management silos, allowing network operators to orchestrate services from end-to-end

 

NFVi Carrier-grade hardware 

The NFVi ready Lanner HTCA-6000 platforms have been designed to meet the needs of enterprise and carrier networking environments. Built with NEBS compliance, these high-availability, certified carrier-grade x86 hardware appliances tackle the five 9’s (99.999%) requirements when deploying NFV in demanding environments. The Hybrid Advanced Telecommunications Computing Architecture (HTCA) designed by lanner provides flexibility, modularity and full component redundancy while sustaining the extreme performance needed in ever-evolving networks.

Lanner has partnered itself with the Blue Planet SDN/NFV ecosystem to collaborate and ensure compatibility between hardware and cutting-edge computer networking software. Paired with Lanner’s HTCA x86 network appliances, NFV is ready to replace traditional high-availability systems with equally robust, albeit much more scalable flexible, software-based solutions.

 

HTCA-6200

A 2U platform housing dual rear CPU-blades and 2 front-facing Networking I/O blades, each CPU blade supporting dual Intel® Xeon® E5-2690 v3/v4 CPUs and sixteen DDR4 R-DIMM sockets, totaling 4 CPU’s and 1TB of registered memory. This appliance offers not only extreme performance and power, but extensibility and adaptability through configurable I/O network Interface (NI) Blades. From the standard switch Ethernet blade supporting four GbE LAN ports plus sixteen 10GbE ports, to the Ethernet NI blade with 32x 10Gbe ports and the Trident-II+ switch Ethernet blade with two 100GbE and twenty 10GbE.

 

HTCA-6600

A 6U form-factor carrier-grade platform, this network appliance boasts power several times greater than the similar 6200.  While they share the same computing blade configuration (two Intel® Xeon® E5-2690 v3/v4 CPUs and sixteen DDR4 R-DIMM sockets per blade) this appliance uses 6 CPU blades and equal amount of front-cabled networking I/O blades for a total of 12 CPU’s and 3TB of RAM, easily scaling to service provider environments inside CORD. Top 2 slots configurable with switch blades as well as ethernet NI blades like the bottom 4 slots. Apart from power supply redundancy features, HTCA-6600 features not only the standard power supply redundancy features, but compute and I/O failover capability as well –where a CPU blade or switch blade to fail, another would take on the workload.

 

Platforms made for carrier and enterprise environments

 

Full redundancy

Both platforms provide power supply redundancy for the CPU slots and switch blades. Keeping with traditional telecom robustness, the platform is made to bring five 9’s of availability to NFV deployments, providing. Through platform validation and certification lanners HTCA hardware systems are optimized for service provider and Network operators seeking to deploy reliable SDN/NFV hardware and software solutions.

 

Open standards

Built on top of Intel x86 Intel Xeon processors, the Intel XL170 chipset and I/O blades offering a wide range of ports from ethernet to SFP/QSFP+, Lanners hardware platforms provide a level of freedom which can be described as COTS-like hardware. Providing an open slate for system integrators and service providers to leverage best-in class-hardware in any way they see fit.

 

Aligned ideologies and goals

Lanner embraces the NFV movement and seeks to maximize SDN/NFV impact through open standards and collaboration. Lanner harbors over 30 years of experience in computer networking providing additional value through component-level customizations, optimized hardware designs, system integrations and engineering expertise. Together with the Blue Planet ecosystem Lanner continues to not only follow but contribute in the network evolution and in the shared goal of  matured and production-ready SDN/NFV systems.