STATE OF NFV AND OPNFV: AN UPDATEKey Findings from Heavy Reading's June 2016 Study on "What Operators Think of OPNFV"

A Linux Foundation Collaborative Project

2State of NFV and OPNFV: An Update

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Executive Summary .......................................................................................................................... 3

Key Findings ........................................................................................................................................ 4

State of Operator Involvement in NFV and OPNFV .................................................... 4

Next Steps for NFV and OPNFV ........................................................................................ 10

Conclusion............................................................................................................................................ 13

State of NFV and OPNFV: An Update

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

In June 2016, OPNFV commissioned Heavy Reading to perform a survey on the state of Network Functions Virtualization (NFV) and the perceptions of the Open Platform for NFV (OPNFV) project in the global carrier community.

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.

The high points of the survey revealed that respondents:

• View OPNFV as critical to the telecom industry

• See open source integration as more vital than ever

• Believe that NFV—assisted by OPNFV—is making impressive headway

• Recognize that there are still barriers and challenges to adoption

• Want security and MANO to be the next areas of emphasis for OPNFV

This information brief highlights some of the key lessons from the survey.1

3

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 of NFV and OPNFV: An Update

4State of NFV and OPNFV: An Update

KEY FINDINGS

Fundamentally, this survey illustrates the notable progress of NFV deployments and the primacy of OPNFV in the fulfillment of NFV’s mission.

State of Operator Involvement in NFV and OPNFV

It's useful to begin with a sense of where communications service providers stand

with their NFV strategy and implementations. While NFV deployments are still young,

operators are further along in the journey than they were eight months ago. As shown in

Figure 1 below, 21% of respondents are in production deployment with NFV—up from 9%

in the fall study.

We are now developing our NFV strategy: 33%

We have an NFV strategy but have not started executing it yet: 20%

We are in the testing/proof of concept stage regarding NFV: 20%

We are in production deployment with NFV: 21%

We have no NFV strategy planned at this point: 6%

Source: Heavy Reading, June 2016, n=90

Figure 1: Operator State of NFV Strategy and Execution

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.

5State of NFV and OPNFV: An Update

Important, but not essential: 61%

Marginally important: 7%

Essential: 32%

Source: Heavy Reading, June 2016, n=60

Figure 2: Importance of OPNFV to the Telecommunications Industry

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).

Actively follows OPNFV, but is not contributing yet: 54%

Does not follow OPNFV, but that may change over time: 19%

Actively involved and contributes directly to OPNFV: 27%

Source: Heavy Reading, June 2016, n=90

Figure 3: Operator Level of Engagement with OPNFV

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.

6State of NFV and OPNFV: An Update

The ways in which NFV is important to these respondents is also quite interesting.

Not surprisingly, the top two areas of focus are interoperability testing and

development of a reference architecture. It's worth noting that respondents were

asked to pick just one "top area" of concern for this question shown in Figure 4, so

the answers can be considered more strictly prioritized than if they were picking

several items.

0 5 10 15 20 25

Source: Heavy Reading, June 2016, n=90

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

Influencing upstream projects

Functional and system testing

Figure 4: Most Important Things that OPNFV is Doing

7State of NFV and OPNFV: An Update

Interoperability and the proper integration of new solutions are constant concerns for

operators, so it's encouraging that OPNFV addresses these areas. The provision of

testing facilities is also a significant requirement that OPNFV is providing.2

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.

We will use OPNFV to evaluate vendors’ NFV-I solutions: 33%

We will use the information on how various components integrate together to help us in our commercial and technical evaluations: 11%

No plans: 3%

We will adopt OPNFV as our reference architecture: 10%

We will consider OPNFV as we develop our reference architecture: 42%

Source: Heavy Reading, June 2016, n=90

Figure 5: How Operators Plan to Leverage OPNFV

A plurality (42%) of respondents plan to use OPNFV to deliver a reference architecture

for NFV, and one-third are using NFV to evaluate vendors’ NFV infrastructure (NFVI)

solutions.3 The fact that 10% said they plan to use OPNFV itself as a reference

architecture is an encouraging sign of confidence.

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 OPNFV has addressed this in part through the Pharos Project, which develops an OPNFV lab infrastructure that is geographically and technically diverse. There are 13 Pharos Labs hosted by the Linux Foundation and Community companies

3 For a discussion of operators experimenting with OPNFV to evaluate different NFVI choices, see the OPNFV Plugfest 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.

8State of NFV and OPNFV: An Update

More rapid deployment of NFV

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%

Source: Heavy Reading, June 2016, n=90Nov-15 Jun-16

Figure 6: Expected Benefits from OPNFV

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.

9State of NFV and OPNFV: An Update

Virtually all the respondents agreed that OPNFV is relevant to upstream open source

projects. Respondents overwhelmingly (85 percent) ranked OpenStack as the most

important upstream project to OPNFV’s success, followed by Open vSwitch (49 percent),

KVM (42 percent) and OpenDaylight (37 percent).

OpenStack

OpenSwitch

KVM

OpenDaylight

Carrier Grade Linux

Open Data Plane

ONOS

DPDK

Open Contrail

Ceph

Source: Heavy Reading, June 2016, n=89Total Sample Non-NA

0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90% 100%

Figure 7: Upstream Open Source Projects Enhanced by OPNFV

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.

Somewhat confident: 74%

Very confident: 24%

Not confident: 1%

Source: Heavy Reading, June 2016, n=90

Figure 8: Confidence Level that OPNFV will fulfill its Promise

Perhaps more importantly, fully 99% (all but one respondent!) have some degree of

confidence that the goals of OPNFV will be realized.

10State of NFV and OPNFV: An Update

Next Steps for NFV and OPNFV

The survey then turned to the questions of expected and desired directions for OPNFV

in the near future (Table 1). Respondents were asked to select the top three technologies.

“Score” is a weighted calculation. Items ranked first are valued higher than the following

ranks; the score is the sum of all weighted rank counts.

Table 1: Top Technologies to Explore Going Forward

Rank Item Score

1 Security 123

2 Management/orchestration (MANO) 101

3 OSS/BSS integration 74

4 White boxes 68

5 Containers 58

6 VNF interoperability 58

7 Skills training 48

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.

Management and Orchestration (MANO) ranked second in technologies that OPNFV

should investigate. In the November 2015 survey it also ranked highly but was selected

at about the same rate as OSS/BSS integration. The fact that it ranked much higher

here illustrates that as operators move further along with NFV, they are gaining a fuller

appreciation of the challenges of MANO—and how critical MANO is to making NFV work.

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.

11State of NFV and OPNFV: An Update

0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80

Source: Heavy Reading, June 2016, n=89

Propose industry-wide APIs in support of orchestration

Demonstrate how MANO projects (e.g., OPEN-O, OSM) can be integrated

into the OPNFV reference platform

O�er upstream feedback to MANO projects components, including VIMs,

VNFMs, and SDN controllers

Promote a common information model, including PoCs, initial

implementations, etc.

Validate/refine ETSI NFV interface specifications defined

in the IFA 00x specifications

Enable benchmarking and performance analysis

Figure 9: How OPNFV Can Help Address MANO

Along these lines, and naturally affecting the future direction of OPNFV, are the issues

that carriers are currently struggling with (Figure 10).

0 10 20 30 40 50 60

Source: Heavy Reading, June 2016, n=88

Multivendor VNF integration

OpenStack vs. proprietary public vs. proprietary private

DevOps, CI/CD tools (e.g., git, Gerrrit, Jenkins)

VNF/MANO integration

Automation tools (e.g., Chef/Puppet)

Containers

Figure 10: Current NFV-Related Challenges for Operators

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.

12State of NFV and OPNFV: An Update

The final question in terms of OPNFV's future progress was to cite the potential

headwinds that could hinder usage of OPNFV. Respondents were asked to select three

challenges and Table 2 reflects the raw scores for these selections.

Table 2: Challenges Faced by OPNFV

Rank Item Score

1 Managing competing company agendas 103

2 Unclear strategy 78

3 Concerns about open source technology 73

4 Lack of buy-in across the vendor community 65

5 Perception 60

6 Awareness 51

7 Lack of operator commitment 49

8 Lack of resources with relevant skill set 47

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.

13State of NFV and OPNFV: An Update

CONCLUSION

The Heavy Reading survey clearly shows that OPNFV is heavily used and trusted among network operators and service providers who are moving steadily towards the adoption of NFV services. Respondents overwhelmingly agreed with high confidence that OPNFV is delivering on its promises to play a key role in this time of industry transformation.

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.