The key elements of NFV usage: A guide

Orchestration, service assurance, service fulfilment, automation and closed-loop automation. These are important concepts associated with network functions virtualisation (NFV) technology being adopted by telecom operators as they transition their networks to become software-driven and cloud-based. 

Prayson Pate (pictured), CTO of the Ensemble division at ADVA Optical Networking, explains the technologies and their role and gives each a status update. 

Orchestration

Network functions virtualisation (NFV) is based on the idea of replacing physical appliances - telecom boxes - with software running on servers performing the same networking role.

Using NFV speeds up service development and deployment while reducing equipment and operational costs.

It also allows operators to work with multiple vendors rather than be dependent on a single vendor providing the platform and associated custom software.

Operators want to adopt software-based virtual network functions (VNFs) running on standard servers, storage and networking, referred to as NFV infrastructure (NFVI). 

In such an NFV world, the term orchestration refers to the control and management of virtualised services, composed of virtual network functions and executed on the NFV infrastructure.

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Xilinx unveils a new class of compute IC

Programmable device company Xilinx has outlined an architecture that it claims represents a new class of computing chip.

The silicon architecture has been four years in the making, involved 1,500 engineers and cost over $1 billion in R&D investment.

ACAP's functional blocks. Source: Xilinx

Dubbed the adaptive compute acceleration platform (ACAP), the first device will be fabricated using TSMC’s state-of-the-art 7nm CMOS process and will tape out later this year. The largest ACAP devices will use as many as 50 billion transistors.

“Based on the limited information from Xilinx, it is difficult to say what ACAP is, much less whether it creates a new product category,” says Linley Gwennap, principal analyst at The Linley Group.

That said, Gwennap believes the next-generation Xilinx products are far more than simply moving its FPGA technology to a 7nm CMOS. “The company has clearly put significant effort into improving the capabilities of these products to address 5G wireless, machine learning (AI), and other advanced applications,” says Gwennap.

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ETSI embraces AI to address rising network complexity

The growing complexity of networks is forcing telecom operators and systems vendors to turn to machine intelligence for help. It has led the European Telecommunications Standards Institute, ETSI, to set up an industry specification group to define how artificial intelligence (AI) can be applied to networking.

 “With the advent of network functions virtualisation and software-defined networking, we can see the eventuality that network management is going to get very much more complicated,” says Ray Forbes, convenor of the ETSI Industry Specification Group, Experimental Network Intelligence (ISG-ENI).

Source: ETSI

The AI will not just help with network management, he says, but also with the introduction of services and the more efficient use of network resources.

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