5 Reference NFVI SW profiles and configurations
Table of Contents
- 5.1 NFVI SW profile description.
- 5.1.1 Virtual Compute.
- 5.1.2 Virtual Storage.
- 5.1.3 Virtual Networking.
- 5.1.4 Security.
- 5.2 NFVI reference SW profiles and configurations.
- 5.2.1 Virtual Compute features and configurations.
- 5.2.2 Virtual Storage features and configurations.
- 5.2.3 Virtual Networking features and configurations.
5.1 NFVI SW profile description
NFVI Software layer is composed of 2 layers, Figure 5-1: - The virtualisation Infrastructure layer, which is based on hypervisor virtualisation technology or container-based virtualisation technology. Container virtualisation can be nested in hypervisor-based virtualisation - The host OS layer
Figure 5-1: NFVI software layers.
For a host (compute node or physical server), the virtualization layer is an abstraction layer between hardware components (compute, storage and network resources) and virtual resources allocated to VNF-C, each VNF-C generally maps 1:1 against a single VM or a single container/pod. Figure 5-2 represents the virtual resources (virtual compute, virtual network and virtual storage) allocated to VNF-C and managed by the VIM.
Figure 5-2: NFVI- Virtual resources.
Depending on the requirements of VNFs, a VNFC will be deployed with a NFVI instance type and an appropriate compute flavour. A NFVI instance type is defined by a NFVI SW profile and a NFVI HW profile. A NFVI SW profile is a set of virtual resources with specific behaviour, capabilities and metrics. Figure 5-3 depicts a high level view of software profiles for Basic, Network Intensive and Compute intensive instances types.
Figure 5-3: NFVI software profiles.
The following sections detail the NFVI SW profile features per type of virtual resource. The list of these features will evolve over time.
5.1.1 Virtual Compute
Table 5-1 and Table 5-2 depict the features related to virtual compute.
.conf | Feature | Type | Description |
---|---|---|---|
nfvi.com.cfg.001 | Support of flavours | Flavours | Support of compute Flavours defined in Compute Flavour's catalogue. |
nfvi.com.cfg.002 | CPU partionning | Value | CPU dedicated to the host and CPU dedicated to VNFs |
nfvi.com.cfg.003 | CPU allocation ratio | Value | Number of virtual cores per physical core |
nfvi.com.cfg.004 | NUMA awareness | Yes/No | Support of NUMA at the virtualization layer |
nfvi.com.cfg.005 | CPU pinning capability | Yes/No | Binding of a process to a dedicated CPU |
nfvi.com.cfg.006 | Huge Pages | Yes/No | Ability to manage huge pages of memory |
Table 5-1: Virtual Compute features.
.conf | Feature | Type | Description |
---|---|---|---|
nfvi.com.acc.cfg.001 | Editor Note: To be worked on |
Table 5-2: Virtual Compute Acceleration features.
5.1.2 Virtual Storage
Table 5-3 and Table 5-4 depict the features related to virtual storage.
.conf | Feature | Type | Description |
---|---|---|---|
nfvi.stg.cfg.001 | Storage Types | Supported Storage types. | |
nfvi.stg.cfg.002 | Storage Block | Yes/No | |
nfvi.stg.cfg.003 | Storage Object | Yes/No | |
nfvi.stg.cfg.004 | Storage with replication | Yes/No | |
nfvi.stg.cfg.005 | Storage with encryption | Yes/No |
Table 5-3: Virtual Storage features.
.conf | Feature | Type | Description |
---|---|---|---|
nfvi.stg.acc.cfg.001 | Storage IOPS oriented | Yes/No | |
nfvi.stg.acc.cfg.002 | Storage capacity oriented | Yes/No |
Table 5-4: Virtual Storage Acceleration features.
5.1.3 Virtual Networking
Table 5-5 and Table 5-6 depict the features related to virtual networking.
.conf | Feature | Type | Description |
---|---|---|---|
nfvi.net.cfg.001 | vNIC interface | IO virtualisation | e.g. virtio1.1, i40evf (Intel driver for VF SR-IOV). |
nfvi.net.cfg.002 | Overlay protocol | Protocols | The overlay network encapsulation protocol needs to enable ECMP in the underlay to take advantage of the scale-out features of the network fabric. |
nfvi.net.cfg.003 | NAT | Yes/No | Support of Network Address Translation |
nfvi.net.cfg.004 | Security Groups | Yes/No | Set of rules managing incoming and outgoing network traffic |
nfvi.net.cfg.005 | SFC | Yes/No | Support of Service Function Chaining |
nfvi.net.cfg.006 | Traffic patterns symmetry | Yes/No | Traffic patterns should be optimal, in terms of packet flow. North-south traffic shall not be concentrated in specific elements in the architecture, making those critical choke-points, unless strictly necessary (i.e. when NAT 1:many is required). |
nfvi.net.cfg.007 | Horizontal scaling | Yes/No | The VNF cluster must be able to scale horizontally and to leverage technologies such as ECMP to enable scale-outs/scale-ins, privileging Active-Active HA models, even though this may require some level of application re-design to cope with the need of sharing state between VNF instances |
Table 5-5: Virtual Networking features.
.conf | Feature | Type | Description |
---|---|---|---|
nfvi.net.acc.cfg.001 | vSwitch optimization | Yes/No and SW Optimization | e.g. DPDK. |
nfvi.net.acc.cfg.002 | Support of HW offload | Yes/No | e.g. support of SR-IOV, SmartNic. |
nfvi.net.acc.cfg.003 | Crypto acceleration | Yes/No | |
nfvi.net.acc.cfg.004 | Crypto Acceleration Interface | Yes/No |
Table 5-6: Virtual Networking Acceleration features.
5.1.4 Security
5.2 NFVI reference SW profiles and configurations
This section will detail NFVI SW profiles and associated configurations for the 3 types of NFVI instances: Basic, Network intensive and Compute intensive.
5.2.1 Virtual Compute features and configurations
Table 5-7 depicts the features and configurations related to virtual compute for the 3 types of reference NFVI instances.
.conf | Feature | Type | Basic | Network Intensive | Compute Intensive |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
nfvi.com.cfg.001 | Support of flavours | Yes/No | Y | Y | Y |
nfvi.com.cfg.002 | CPU partionning | value | |||
nfvi.com.cfg.003 | CPU allocation ratio | value | 1:4 | 1:1 | 1:1 |
nfvi.com.cfg.004 | NUMA awareness | Yes/No | N | Y | Y |
nfvi.com.cfg.005 | CPU pinning capability | Yes/No | N | Y | Y |
nfvi.com.cfg.006 | Huge Pages | Yes/No | N | Y | Y |
Table 5-7: Virtual Compute features and configuration for the 3 types of SW profiles.
Table 5-8 will gather virtual compute acceleration features. It will be filled over time.
.conf | Feature | Type | Basic | Network Intensive | Compute Intensive |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
nfvi.com.acc.cfg.001 | Editor Note: To be worked on |
Table 5-8: Virtual Compute Acceleration features.
5.2.2 Virtual Storage features and configuration
Table 5-9 and Table 5-10 depict the features and configurations related to virtual storage for the 3 types of reference NFVI instances.
.conf | Feature | Type | Basic | Network Intensive | Compute Intensive |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
nfvi.stg.cfg.001 | Catalogue storage Types | Yes/No | Y | Y | Y |
nfvi.stg.cfg.002 | Storage Block | Yes/No | Y | Y | Y |
nfvi.stg.cfg.003 | Storage Object | Yes/No | Y | Y | Y |
nfvi.stg.cfg.004 | Storage with replication | Yes/No | N | Y | Y |
nfvi.stg.cfg.005 | Storage with encryption | Yes/No | N | N | Y |
Table 5-9: Virtual Storage features and configuration for the 3 types of SW profiles.
Table 5-10 depicts the features related to Virtual storage Acceleration
.conf | Feature | Type | Basic | Network Intensive | Compute Intensive |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
nfvi.stg.acc.cfg.001 | Storage IOPS oriented | Yes/No | N | Y | Y |
nfvi.stg.acc.cfg.002 | Storage capacity oriented | Yes/No | N | N | Y |
Table 5-10: Virtual Storage Acceleration features.
5.2.3 Virtual Networking features and configurations
Table 5-11 and Table 5-12 depict the features and configurations related to virtual networking for the 3 types of reference NFVI instances.
.conf | Feature | Type | Basic | Network Intensive | Compute Intensive |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
nfvi.net.cfg.001 | vNIC interface | IO virtualisation | virtio1.1 | virtio1.1, i40evf (Intel driver for VF SR-IOV) | virtio1.1, i40evf (Intel driver for VF SR-IOV) |
nfvi.net.cfg.002 | Overlay protocol | Protocols | VXLAN, MPLSoUDP, GENEVE, other | VXLAN, MPLSoUDP, GENEVE, other | VXLAN, MPLSoUDP, GENEVE, other |
nfvi.net.cfg.003 | NAT | Yes/No | Y | Y | Y |
nfvi.net.cfg.004 | Security Group | Yes/No | Y | Y | Y |
nfvi.net.cfg.005 | SFC support | Yes/No | N | Y | Y |
nfvi.net.cfg.006 | Traffic patterns symmetry | Yes/No | Y | Y | Y |
nfvi.net.cfg.007 | Horizontal scaling | Yes/No | Y | Y | Y |
Table 5-11: Virtual Networking features and configuration for the 3 types of SW profiles.
.conf | Feature | Type | Basic | Network Intensive | Compute Intensive |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
nfvi.net.acc.cfg.001 | vSwitch optimization | YeS/No and SW Optimization | N | Y, DPDK | Y, DPDK |
nfvi.net.acc.cfg.002 | Support of HW offload | YeS/No | N | Y, support of SR-IOV and SmartNic | Y, support of SR-IOV and SmartNic |
nfvi.net.acc.cfg.003 | Crypto acceleration | Yes/No | N | Y | Y |
nfvi.net.acc.cfg.004 | Crypto Acceleration Interface | Yes/No | N | Y | Y |
Table 5-12: Virtual Networking Acceleration features.