One document matched: draft-hares-vnf-pool-use-case-02.xml

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="us-ascii"?>

<!DOCTYPE rfc SYSTEM "rfc2629.dtd" [
<!-- One method to get references from the online citation libraries.
     There has to be one entity for each item to be referenced. 
     An alternate method (rfc include) is described in the references. -->
<!ENTITY I-D.zong-vnfpool-problem-statement SYSTEM "http://xml.resource.org/public/rfc/bibxml3/reference.I-D.zong-vnfpool-problem-statement.xml">    
<!ENTITY RFC2119 SYSTEM "http://xml.resource.org/public/rfc/bibxml/reference.RFC.2119.xml">
<!ENTITY RFC3746 SYSTEM "http://xml.resource.org/public/rfc/bibxml/reference.RFC.3746.xml">
]>

<?xml-stylesheet type='text/xsl' href='rfc2629.xslt' ?>
<?rfc strict="no" ?>
<?rfc toc="yes" ?>
<?rfc symrefs="yes" ?>
<?rfc sortrefs="yes"?>
<?rfc compact="yes" ?>
<?rfc subcompact="no" ?>
<rfc category="info" docName="draft-hares-vnf-pool-use-case-02" ipr="trust200902">
  
  <front>
    <title abbrev="vnf-pool-use-case">Use Cases for Resource Pools with Virtual Network Functions (VNFs) </title>
     <author fullname="Susan Hares" initials="S" surname="Hares">
      <organization>Huawei</organization>
      <address>
        <postal>
          <street>7453 Hickory Hill</street>
          <!-- Reorder these if your country does things differently -->
          <city>Saline</city>
          <region>CA</region>
          <code>48176</code>
          <country>USA</country>
        </postal>
        <email>shares@ndzh.com</email>
        <!-- uri and facsimile elements may also be added -->
      </address>
    </author>
    <date  year="2014"/>
    <area>INT</area>
    <workgroup>VNF BOF</workgroup>
    <abstract>
	<t> This draft describes use cases the author has observed in demonstrations or deployments
        for virtualized network functions (VNFs) supported by VNF Pools. Several of these demonstrations
		combined VNF Pools into VNFsets. The use cases were: cloud bursting, parental controls,
	    load balancer for multipath (L1-L7), WAN optimization that runs either between access nodes
        and Data Centers, WAN optimization between mobile phones and Data Centers (through access nodes),
        application placement optimization, and optimized placement of web applications utilizing minimal data transfer. 
		
	</t>
    </abstract>
    
  </front>


  <middle>

<section anchor="INTRO" title="Introduction" toc="default">
      <t> This draft focuses on providing one person's observations on the deployment of Virtualized
	  Network Functions which are supported by VNF Pool where the VNF Pools may be grouped into VNF Sets. 
	  This version of the draft no longer needs to explain the basic architecture and 
	  problems since <xref target="I-D.zong-vnfpool-problem-statement"></xref> provides an excellent description of
	  the following:
	  <list style="symbols">
	 <t> Terminology of VNF, VNF Pools, elements of VNF Pools, VNF Pool Managers, and VNF Sets; </t>
	 <t> Challenges to the reliability of VNFs (without Pools); </t>
	 <t> Challenges to reliability within VNFs (redundancy and state synchronization), </t>
	 <t> Interactions with Service Control Entity managing the VNF functions </t> 
	 <t> and the needs for reliable transport </t> 
	 </list>
	 </t>
	 <t>
	 This document simply introduces unique terms, and then describes authors experience the VNF Pools and 
	 VNF Managers when the VNF Pools contain only one type of function. The VNF Pools may operate
     in a set of VNF Pools. This document no longer examines VNF Set management because is out of the
     scope of the VNF Charter. 	 
	  </t>
      <t>Virtual Network functions supported by Virtual Network Pools and organized into Virtual Sets
     have been observed to be more reliable and be able to expand (or contract horizontally). By being more
	reliable, this author observed that individual failures of virtual functions due to software or 
	system constraints (load) were survived by switching over to another NFV function within the VNF Pool.
	For example, with compatible software functions running, the current and previous software ran a 
	network applications (E.g. open source NAT or open source DPI), a failure on one VNF running the current software
	could quickly be replaced by a "hot standby" in the Pool running the previous version. Upon increased
	traffic, one VNF function (for firewalls) could be expanded to multiple firewalls each handling a portion of the
	traffic. In a sense, the VNF expands horizontally to handle the increased
    traffic. In the same way, as traffic diminished, this VNF can contract. </t>
	<t> This document describes each use case by describing the application and how the VNF function when
	operating within VNF Pools within the VNF Set that makes up the application. While some of these
	use cases had multiple VNF Sets, VNF Set management is outside of the scope of the VNF Pool work. 
    Therefore, the explanations have been simplified to consider all the VNF Pools into one set. </t>
	<t> One final note, the author knows she has only provided abstract descriptions of these deployments, but
    out of respect for products and companies the abstract description is best.  </t>  	
 </section> 
   
<section title="Terms">
	<t> </t> 
   	<t> The VNF Problem statement <xref target="I-D.zong-vnfpool-problem-statement"/> 
        defines the terms reliability, VNF, VNF Pool, VNF Pool Element, VNF Pool User, VNF Pool
      	Manager, and VNF Set.  This draft uses these definitions. The following definitions are 
     	not defined within the VNF problem statement:  Cloud Bursting, Stateful parental controls, 
        WAN optimization, and  application placement. These terms are defined below. </t> 
      <t> Cloud Bursting: the ability for Virtual processing to burst through the limits 
          of one virtual environment and automatically transfers a portion of the processing to 
	   another virtual environment. 
      </t>  
       <t> Stateful parental controls: the ability for network access devices to have content
	  filters that react to traffic, location, and user. These controls follow the 
	  user across multiple access points within a home network, or in a carrier network. 
	</t> 

	<t>WAN optimization: the ability to optimize traffic across a Wide-Area network.
	   WAN optimization often makes use of TCP FLOW optimizations (with IETF TCP features) 
	   and TCP de-duplication of packets,
	</t> 
	<t> Application placement: ability for coordinating software to place applications 
	    based a combination of compute resources, data storage, network service, and
	    security concerns. Application placement may involve movement of some application
	    data, movement of some applications (data and compute), and movement of network 
	    resources to service the applications. One type of network resource movement
	    is the movement of virtual network functions (VNFs) which are defined, created,
	    allocated with resources in a way to provide an integral unit to the application
	    placement control software. 
 	</t>  
	<t> OTT (Over the Top): This industry terms implies an overlay network that
            is overlaid on existing networks as a virtual network. </t> 
     <t> </t>
	<t>Shared risk group (SRG): Shared risk groups occur when different VNFs in a VNF Pool 
	     all exist upon the same instance of a virtual form or hypervisor.  
		 When a hypervisor fails, all the VNF instances on the same hypervisor will fail,
		 </t>
   	 
</section>
<section title="Use Case List">
      <t> The use cases described in this draft are: </t> 
	    <t><list style="symbols">
	      <t> Cloud Bursting </t>
              <t> stateful parental controls implemented in access nodes and firewalls (stateful and regular) </t>
              <t> load balancer doing multipath (supports L1-L7 optimization), </t>
	      <t> WAN optimization between access nodes and Data Centers, </t> 
	      <t> WAN optimization between mobile phones through access nodes to/from Data center (E.g Riverbed WAN), </t> 
	      <t> Application placement optimization using optimized DNS and DCHP VNFs, </t> 
	      <t> Application placement optimization to minimize data transfer.</t> 
	     </list> 
		 The uses cases are done in the order of VNF sets to VNF single operations. The 
		 Cloud bursting obviously takes a set of VNF Pools to lift up services in a cloud environment
		 and move these to another cloud environment. </t>
	 <t> Deployment of VNF functions into critical network functions requires that
    	 multiple sources exist to reduce risk of software or hardware issues, 
         and to respond to economic pressure to continually improve while reducing prices.
         Multi-vendor sources for these VNF, VNF Pools, and VNR sets comes
		 at the price of designing (or adopting an existing) interoperability VNF Pool
		 manager for VNF Pools.  
		</t>		
      <t> </t>
</section> 
<section title="Cloud Bursting Use Case" toc="default">
 <t> </t>	
 <t>Description: </t>
 <t></t>
 <t>Three cases of cloud bursting exist. Public clouds adding more resources upon demand. 
  Private clouds adding more resources upon demand from private cloud resources.  Private clouds
  adding more resources from the public cloud. In the public/private cloud, the orchestration 
  system looks within pools of additional resources to fit the request for more resources for
  a particular time. Verizon provided examples of cloud bursing at ONS 2012, and  Terremark
  utilizes cloud bursing to obtain more resources 
  (http://www.terremark.com/services/it-infrastructure/cloud-services/enterprise-cloud/architecture/)
  operating over open-source hypervisors (2012, 2013). 
  </t> 
  <t> VNFs within the VNF Pools operate as management systems and networks router/switches 
  (virtual switches, routers, end systems) to spin up additional transport process (TCP/STCP) and move work jobs
  via standard interfaces (libvirt, CLI, REST, and JASON), and provide standardized value-added functions.
  These value-added functions include the following: 
  <list style = "symbols">
	<t> VNFs in VNF Pools of system monitoring and orchestration </t> 
    <t> VNF in VNF Pools for virtual firewall to protect the data </t>
    <t> VNF in VNF Pools for DPI or DDOS during </t>
    <t> VNF in VNF specialized DNS that controls private/public cloud move </t>  
    <t> VNF in VNF WAN applications that create a large pipeline for
      	for movement of data and applications within Cloud (Private/Public) or between clouds </t> 
    <t> VNFs in VNF Pools for smart access to the could </t>
   </list></t>
   <t> </t>
   <t> Why VNF in VNF Pools for network router/switch or host system functions </t>
   <t> VNFs in VNF Pools allow cloud bursting to temporarily expand horizontally to take the load
    as the processing groups move between clouds.  Each of the functions has a scaling within its
	own pool which allows the bursts of effort to grab or release the amount of functions. 
	The VNFs doing system monitoring of the move and the orchestration are also included in the
	features that grab or release functions. </t> 
   
   <t>Why VNF Pools: </t>
   <t> Bursty nature of action of Cloud Bursting requires being able utilize  
      VNFs within Pools to expand horizontally for the estimated cloud bursting activities.  However, if the 
	  cloud bursting expands beyond the resources estimated by the orchestration software 
	  then the VNFs within the pool can expand the service. </t>
	  
	<t> Why Multi-vendor interoperable VNF Pools?: </t> 
    <t>  Cloud bursting is a critical business infrastructure which needs highly reliable software
	  that can be maintained by Cloud operations. Critical infrastructure requires multi-sources. 
	  Either the Cloud operations creates a team to maintain VNF Pool software from Open Source code bases,
	  or the equipment vendors provide interoperable VNF Pool Managers and VNF Pools that run across multiple platforms. </t>
</section>
<section title="Stateful Parental Controls" toc="default">
 <t> </t>
 <t>Description: </t>
 <t> </t>
 <t> Parental content filters are targeted filters that are installed based
     on an identification of a user. When the centralized controller detects the
     User (via traffic pattern, role identification (ABFAB, HTTP)),  
     an orchestration manager installs the appropriate software to guarantee filters. 
     Two types of security exist: authentication and authorization.  In 
     authentication, ACL and other port based filtering is set per customer
     for the user.  This filtering may block, prioritize, or transfer to a
     black hole recording device different traffic.  In authorization, the
     systems create a web of trust via an identity server (for HTTP 1.0 SAML
     template defined by OASIS and IETF ABFAB information for non-http).
 </t>
  <t> </t>
  <t> The following is a list of some of the VNF functions found in VNF Pools 
   in the Stateful Parental Control Model </t> 
  <t>  <list style = "symbols">
   <t> VNF Pool for the specialized Access filters </t> 
	<t> VNF Pool for open source DPIs (snort, etc.) to find "inappropriate" material, </t>
	<t> VNF Pool for specialized DPI inspection, </t> 
	<t> VNF Pool probes on hyper-visors, </t> 
	<t> VNF POol for management functions depositing configuration in Open Flow switches,
	     Ethernet Switches, Virtual switches, routers, firewalls, and access nodes. </t> 
	<t> VNF Pool for access firewall </t>
	<t> VNF Pool for spam filters for mail </t> 
	<t> VNF Pool for DDOS software, </t> 
	<t> VNF Pool for DNS/DHCP servers that allow the linking of the the Public services
	    to a instantly created VNFs for specialized access </t> 
	<t> VNF Pool to move filters within Cloud (Private/Public) or between clouds
        in anticipation of the persons movement (If in central London, spread to 
        other access nodes along public transportation (Tube) lines or to hotels.).  </t> 
	<t> VNF Pool to do additional user identification of the systems </t>
	</list> </t>
   <t> </t> 
   <t>Why VNF Pools </t>
  <t>  The bursty nature of user access is dependent on the detection 
   of the movement of the user.  At the moment the public software identifies the user,
   this VNF Pool set operates to expand horizontally to provide the necessary service
   to provide these parental features. The VNF Pools allow groups of these parental '
   families to be instantiated. </t> 
   <t> Why inter-operable VNF Pool Managers </t>
   <t>The VNF functions may go between the mobile devices the user moves with (E.g. Android Pad
   or Android Phone) and the local network systems supported by the Carrier, the hotel,
   or the airport systems.  Inter-operable VNF Pool Managers means that some NVF functions
   may move from Android Pad /Android Phone to carrier's equipment.  </t> 
 
</section > 
 
<section title="Load balancer" toc="default">
  <t>Description: </t>
  <t> </t>
  <t> Load balancers (such as Riverbed or Cisco) look to balance traffic in different layers of the stack (L1-L7).
     SDN meta controllers (OpenDaylight, Vyatta)  monitor work with the time-critical OTT control process
     (which creates and manages the OTT VPNs (L2/L3/MPLS)) to determine where the load is at any 
     specific time, and to track it over time. The SDN orchestration devices work with the
     SDN OTT control process to adjust to readjust the load at L1-L7.  
   </t>
   <t></t>
   <t> The VNF functions that use VNF Pools in the load balancing service are: </t> 	
   <t> <list style = "symbols">
	<t> VNFs for network probes in all devices (mobile phone, ipad, access devices, vswitch, vrouter, tcp optimizer,
	    DPI, hypervisors, VMs dumming storage, VMs creating the network;</t>
	<t> VNFs for depositing configuration in  Ethernet switches (open-flow or IEEE 802.1),
        	routers, firewalls, access nodes; </t> 
	<t> VNFs for firewall; </t>
	<t> VNFs to do Traffic capacity/load balance calculation; </t> 
	<t> VNFs running orchestrator monitor/change algorithms; and</t>  
	<t> VNFs to users or specific traffic to aid in load balancing.</t>
	</list></t>

   <t>Why VNF Pools: </t> 
   <t>True end-to-end Load balancing requires load balancing across multiple layers
	with VNF pools to support different functions. Multi-vendors solutions will allow
        meta controllers to balance traffic to reduce costs in networks. 
	Current Enterprise customers find the load balancing operates with TCP WAN
	optimization to utilize all network bandwidth effectively. </t> 
	<t> Why inter-operable VNF Pool Managers </t>
	<t> Network probes, network traffic capacity calculation, and configuration of
	    changes operate either when traffic thresholds are exceeded or
		upon period timers. Each of these functions has bursty needs needing the
		ability to expand horizontally. </t>
	<t> Firewalls are traffic based which may be bursty or steady state depending
	   on the application profiles. VNF Pools allow for the horizontal expansion 
	   during bursts. </t>
	 <t> Long lived traffic flows may be identified by looking for users or 
	    application traffic patterns.  This type of processing function has
		a "DPI-Like" processing quality that make require quick examination of
		some data.  VNF support in VNF Pools allows the assurance of this type of support </t>

</section> 
<section title="Android phone TCP WAN optimization" toc="default">
<t>Description: </t>
<t> </t>
<t> Android phones and Android tablets often communicate across the
    LTE/WiFi connections. Optimization of the link for the low-bandwidth
    of LTE or Wifi connections, and the switch between LTE and WiFi
    requires monitoring of traffic, choosing link, optimizing TCP
    (Window and removing duplicates).   
	</t>
 <t> </t>
 <t> The VNFs that are aided by VPN Pools in this application includes:  </t> 	
  <t> <list style = "symbols">
     <t> VNFs for probes in all devices (mobile phone, mobile pads, Wifi enabled nodes, LTE IP RAN notes)</t>
     <t> VNFs for depositing configuration in SDN access nodes (Wifi or LTE) </t>
     <t> VNFs for to handle remote phone parameter adjustments;  </t> 
     <t> VNFs to do firewalls (E.g traffic not allowed over LTE due to customer policy); </t>
     <t> VNFs for TCP data de-duplication process; </t>
     <t> VNFs for Traffic capacity/load balance calculation (see Football stadium problem below); </t> 
     <t> VNFs for best processing of Video traffic or best network to pull Video traffic from; </t>
     <t> VNFs to identify user or user traffic and </t>
     <t> VNFs to interface to secure data processes. </t>
     </list> </t>
 <t> </t> 
 <t> One scenario to consider is the football stadium scenario.  A person takes the
     IPAD to watch the close up replays or send email.  During fourth quarter, 
     the person receive an urgent call to go home and walks with the IPAD down 
     the street to the metro-system to return home.  On the way, the person is 
     utilizing the IPAD to send mail, watch the football game, and do Skype calls. </t>
	 <t> This scenario is similar in needs to the parental controls. 
	 The differences are TCP data de-duplication to improve WAN traffic
	 and specialized Video traffic handling, plus the mobile phone management and security.  
   </t> 
 <t>Why VNF Pools: </t>
    <t> The football user case illustrates how the network functions are used in bursts.
	The VNF Pools allow these functions to expand out to fit the users needs. The football
	example also shows how events can cause massive numbers of these bursty users 
	to occur at the same time. Again, the expansion out for these events without reducing
	service is key to the quality of user experience for mobile phone or mobile pad users. 
	</t> 
 
 <t> Why Inter-operable VPN Pools handled by VPN Pool Managers: </t>
    <t> Phones systems do not want a single vendor for all features.
    Multiple interoperable access nodes and Android pad/tablet implementations require
    these VNF pools. The football stadium may require that several mobile operators
    or mobile or cable operators work together to provide this service. 	</t> 

</section> 
<section title="SOHO device optimization" toc="default">
 <t>Description: </t>
     <t> </t>
     <t> SOHO devices using SDN VM technology must balance 
	 traffic movement between small cells (WiFi or femtocells). 
	    Access policies must be configured for restriction on this policy.
    </t>
    <t> </t>
    <t> The VNFs that VNF Pools in this application are: </t> 	
	<t> <list style = "symbols">
		<t> VNFs for probes in all devices (mobile phone, mobile pads, WiFi enabled nodes, LTE or femtocells)</t>
		<t> VNFs for VPN to user identification and security.</t>
		<t> VNFs for depositing configuration in access nodes (Wifi, L), </t>
		 <t> VNFs for handling remote phone parameter adjustments;  </t> 
		<t> VNFs for firewall (traffic not allowed over LTE); </t>
		<t> VNFs for TCP data de-duplication process; </t> 
		<t> VNFs for Traffic capacity/load balancing over single/multiple soho links; </t> 
		<t> VNFs to allow applications load balance across internal soho links based on traffic needs
                    and use policy; and </t> 
		<t> VNFs for VPN to user identification and security.</t>
	</list> </t>

 <t>Why VNF Pools:</t>
 <t> SOHO devices will have limited resources for handling probes to find local devices, 
 change configurations in access devices, adjust remote phone parameters, firewall traffic,
 and perform WAN optimization (TCP de-duplication, prioritizing of traffic (like phones) or load balancing). 
 However, SOHOs may only need the probes, configurations changes, and phone adjustments when
 users arrive into the home. The data related VNF functions will occur as the
 SOHO office begins to transfer data. The VNF pools allow the VNF function to scale up/down
via horizontal expansion. </t> 
<t>VPN Pool Growth/Shrinking: </t>
<t> The VPN Pool Manager can handle increasing or decreasing the 
VNF Pool size.  Cooperating VNF Pool Managers can be seen to be useful in this use case, but
the cooperating VNF pool managers are outside the scope of the VNF within a VNF Pool.
 </t> 
</section> 

<section title="Application Scaling" toc="default">
 <t>Description: </t>
  <t> </t>
        <t> Applications may be placed in a variety of hypervisors.
	    The rapid deployment of applications on services may allow
	    millions of applications to be available within the cloud.
	    Creating a effective lookup for the applications or redirecting
	    applications takes an Network Virtual environment that controls
	    DCHP, DNS, and http access rapidly. 2 Million URI references 
	    for each access node is possible given the current growth.
	</t>
	<t> VNF within the cloud must scale up to handle
	    the VNF services required by the network infrastructure. 
	    This includes the network information functions of
	    DNS, DCHP, URL processing, AAA (Diameter/Radius).
	    Fast enactment of these network functions allows an
	    on-demand creation of a multi-tenancy overlay (IETF NV03).   </t>
	   
	<t> </t>
	<t> The VNFs operate in VNF Pools in this application are: </t>
	<t> </t>	
	<t> <list style = "symbols">
		<t> VNFs for AAA functions (Diameter, Radius); </t>
		<t> VNFs for DNS functions; </t>
		<t> VNFs for DCHP functions </t> 
		<t> VNFs for specialized URL/URI processing; </t> 
		<t> VNFs for handling remote probes on these virtual information functions; </t> 
		<t> VNFs for handling remote configuration of these virtual information functions; </t> 
		<t> VNFs for Traffic capacity/load balance calculation; </t> 
	    <t> VNFs for determine optimum placement of application (and application's backup services)
     		to optimize CPU compute, storage or data </t>     
		<t> VNFs for VPN to user identification and permissions to use data; and </t> 
	</list> </t> 
	<t> Wny VNF in VNF Pools </t>
	<t> User load patterns or access patterns will impact how much load the 
    network information VNF functions (DNS, DHCP, URL processing, AAA (Diameter/Radius) encounter.
	The VNF Pools with a good VNF Pool manager can spread the load locally or between different systems. </t>
	<t> The applications and the application usage will also determine how loaded the VNF Function is that
	    monitors CPU utilization, storage, and network resources.  Again, the VNF supported by VNF Pools 
        can expand or shrink  horizontally. </t>
   <t> The rest of the VNF functions needs for VNF Pools have been described above. </t>  
        </section > 

    <section anchor="IANA" title="IANA Considerations">
      <t>This document includes no request to IANA.</t>
    </section>
    
    <section anchor="Security" title="Security Considerations">
      
      <t>This document has no security issues as just contains use cases.</t>
      
    </section>

  </middle>

  <back>
    <references title="Normative References">
      &RFC2119;
    </references>


    <references title="Informative References">
      &I-D.zong-vnfpool-problem-statement;
    </references>
    
  </back>
</rfc>