session border controller virtualization in a nfv...

White Paper

Session Border Controller Virtualization in a NFV Cloud

Abstract

As traffic on real time IP communications networks continues to explode, the complexities of securing, scaling, interworking, media processing and transcoding for next generation services such as HD voice, VoLTE, VoWiFi, WebRTC, OTT and Unified Communications is growing exponentially. In an increasingly competitive world, where cost efficiency, profitability, and time to market are key drivers of successful business models, the architecture of IP communications networks needs to be redefined.

The move to Network Functions Virtualization (NFV) is gaining momentum in order to address these challenges. Communications service providers (CSPs) are evolving their legacy infrastructures to new cloud based com-munications networks. The rationale is simple – to gain the many benefits of virtualization of network functions including service agility, faster time-to-market for new services, CAPEX and OPEX savings through infrastructure flexibility, and operational efficiencies.

GENBAND has developed an over-arching NFV architecture under which GENBAND communications applica-tions can be easily deployed and managed, supported by third party NFV orchestration, OSS/BSS and NFV cloud virtualization infrastructures.

This white paper covers the opportunities and challenges in virtualizing SBC; and how the GENBAND Ses-sion Border Controller (SBC) implementation in an NFV architecture can help CSPs to deliver elastic scalability through orchestration and automation.

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SBC Virtualization in a NFV Cloud

Why SBC Virtualization?An SBC is a vital elements in today’s IP communication networks. It provides session security, interworking, and advanced session control for real time voice, messaging, and video commu-nications. Existing dedicated appliance based SBC architecture will continue to serve network operators for now, but as the real time communications revolution continues to expand, the need for change and redefining of communications networks is becoming increasingly important. CSPs and enterprises have started to realize the limitations of proprietary appliance based solutions and looking to virtualize SBCs in a NFV infrastructure.

SBC virtualization provides CSPs with several benefits including:• Service Agility and Operational Simplicity

» by achieving service agility and faster time-to-market for new services and or new markets. » by reducing the complexity of deploying and managing SBCs through automation and orchestration

• Cost Efficiencies » by removing SBC vendor dependencies on hardware lifecycle; and leveraging general

purpose datacenter platforms and shared infrastructure across multiple applications » by avoiding expensive lab set ups simply by creating virtualized test environments as

needed » by gaining efficiencies in optimal utilization of resources via automation and elastic

scalability• New Revenue Opportunities

» by making it easy to expand and test new markets with minimal cost simply by deploying virtual SBC instances in local public or private datacenters

» by offering new revenue generating services such as virtual CPE based SBCaaS to business customers

The Challenges in SBC Virtualization – How Should CSP’s PrepareEven though the benefits of SBC virtualization are numerous, as with any new technology, there are considerations and challenges that CSPs should be aware of as well.

Make sure virtualization goals are definedFirst and foremost, CSPs should have a clear understanding of their virtualization strategy and define their goals in terms of what they want to achieve with SBC virtualization. For instance, are they just looking to simply virtualize the SBC function to leverage general purpose platforms in datacenters to reduce dependency on SBC vendor’s hardware lifecycle and reduce costs? OR do they intend to fully embrace NFV cloud infrastructure to gain broader set of benefits such as service agility, operational simplicity, dynamic scalability and many more?

Understand the nitty-gritties of SBC virtualizationThe next important set of considerations are to understand how to run a SBC as a virtual network function within a virtual/ cloud infrastructure. It takes time and planning when considering an SBC virtualization strategy. There are several things to consider including:

• Readiness of datacenters to handle real time media & transcoding applications• Performance assurance in shared infrastructure• Carrier grade five 9’s reliability• NFV infrastructure characteristics in terms of type of hardware, hypervisors, and cloud • Deployment strategy – private, public, or hybrid cloud

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• Characteristics such as integrated versus distributed signaling and media architecture• Service characteristics such as consumer, enterprise, mobile, wholesale or interconnect• Scalability strategy of SBC in virtualized environment• Troubleshooting and management• Interworking with cloud Infrastructure ecosystem such as network orchestrators; and many more • SBC virtualization framework

Not all virtual SBCs are same – Five Key ConsiderationsOne of the most important consideration is the SBC virtualization strategy itself i.e. simple virtualization vs NFV cloud virtualization with a cloud native SBC Virtual Network Function (VNF). If CSPs want to leverage the full potential of cloud NFV deployments, the selection of an SBC must take into consideration whether the SBC is architected for the cloud infrastructure such as NFV OpenStack (or other similar implementations) with not just large monolithic Virtual Machines, but fully decomposed, elastic applications (see Figure 1); or is it archi-tected for just a simple virtualization to run on any general purpose server. Virtual SBC doesn’t always mean cloud NFV support. The infrastructure requirements are different for simple virtualization strategy compared to NFV cloud virtualization strategy.

Second key consideration is virtual SBC software architecture and deployment flexibility. The SBC software should take a modular approach and provide the flexibility to virtualize signaling and media functions independently. Deploying the signaling and media VNFs independently brings several benefits in SBC virtualization strategy enabling operators to evolve to NFV at their own pace, gain cost efficiencies, and improve service quality and reliability. The SBC VNF needs to be architected for carrier grade high availability/geo reliability, without relying on the virtualization infrastructure or manager.

The third key consideration is virtualization of SBC media function. Voice (audio) and video media are a key component of any CSP real time communications and collaboration service offering for consumers and businesses. In today’s networks, media is largely processed using custom propri-etary hardware or COTS appliances that use hardware digital signal processing units optimized for transcoding of media packets. Given the sensitivity of media to latency, delay and jitter, the media VNFs must be architected to run on standard data center server resource pools leveraging software based acceleration techniques such as Intel DPDK and MSDK to attain optimal media and transcoding performance and on-demand scalability.

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Physical-to-Virtual-to-Physical Test Results The fourth key consideration is scalability of virtual SBC – vertical vs horizontal. One of the major adjustments CSPs have to make in the virtualization environment is a shift from getting high scalability on a dedicated SBC platform to achieving similar scalability by running multiple smaller virtual SBC instances on a farm of general purpose servers – a recommended strategy for cloud deployment. But vertical scaling (rack and stack) of virtual SBC instances can introduce numerous new operational challenges in a large scale deployment. The virtual SBC should support cloud VNF managers to provide the intelligence to dynamically scale up or down based on network traffic demands – a concept that is generally called elastic scalability in cloud deployments.

The fifth key consideration is the practical evolution to NFV virtualization. To meet the demand for real time communications, service providers will require practical solutions that can meet both current and future traffic demands by putting powerful, scalable and flexible media processing and transcoding functionality where it is most needed. These next generation

systems will need to interwork with fixed, cable, mobile and Over-the-Top (OTT) IP communications networks, and broad ecosystem of multi-vendor cloud environment to gain operational simplicity and automation and ensure a smooth network evolution as the telecom world moves towards virtualization and NFV. It must seamlessly interface with virtual infrastructure managers and cloud orchestrators that has been selected for NFV datacenter using standard APIs. In addition, it is important that a cloud infrastructure and a virtual SBC solution is chosen that is carrier-grade, one which ensures Five 9’s or greater reliability when carrying real-time traffic.

In summary, the new SBC architecture needs to function as a software element in the network to:

• Perform and scale with equal balance in carrier-grade Commercial-off-the-Shelf (COTS) appliance-based deployments, as in the new virtual hypervisors and cloud environments such as NFV

• Utilize the best of COTS appliances and virtualized technologies to deliver cost and performance efficiencies for scaling media func-tions

• Provide deployment flexibility to integrate or distribute signaling and media functions to meet the demands of different applications• Provide the flexibility to seamlessly evolve from one deployment model to another without requiring a major network forklift• Simplify operations through automation, advanced reporting, and analytics; and easily integrate with ecosystem of cloud infrastruc-

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The GENBAND Approach to SBC NFV VirtualizationGENBAND’s SBC functionality has been developed over years of deployment in multiple network types and applications, providing extensive carrier class security and protection, policy enforcement, session management, adaptive routing, real-time reporting and analytics. Network operators benefit from advanced levels of functionality, flexibility, and performance at both Carrier Interconnect and Access IP network borders.

Advanced software capabilities of GENBAND’s SBC include:• Robust and adaptive security mechanisms to defend against VoIP DoS attacks and Fraud • Seamless interworking capabilities to normalize and adapt signaling and media flows• Advanced routing options including ENUM, DNS, and SIP Redirect• Flexible Message Manipulation (FMM) to resolve interworking in real time• Call Admissions Control (CAC) and bandwidth policing • Quality assurance, reporting, and monitoring• IP and session rate limiting to protect from overload

The fundamental tenets of GENBAND’s SBC software architecture leverages modularity, openness, and flexibility to embrace the true objectives of NFV which are to deliver scalability, elasticity, orchestration and automation.

• Software centric SBC architecture, deployed on x86 COTS servers was the first step GENBAND already took nearly a decade ago to eliminate dependency on proprietary single purpose platforms – first in the industry

• Signaling and media processing performed in software using Intel DPDK architecture to remove dependencies on dedicated hardware accelerators – first in the industry

• Distributed signaling and media architecture, an essential step in making the SBC software modular and ready for virtualized network functionality (VNF)

Unique Seamless Evolution to NFVThough NFV is a fast growing trend, and some communication service providers are aggressive in making a shift to NFV, we understand that others are taking incremental steps to migrate their fixed and mobile infrastructures to next gen NFV architectures. Keeping this in mind, GENBAND has factored in complete flexibility to its solutions to enable service providers to evolve to NFV at their own pace.

The GENBAND SBC solution has evolved in line with NFV standards development, and GENBAND offers a unique evolution from a software centric SBC deployed on an integrated COTS hardware platforms, to SBC VNF instances in a full NFV environment, or even a hybrid combination of virtualized appliances under cloud control according to customer requirements and preferences (Figure 2). This flexible architecture enables a unmatched deployment flexibility in the industry to support service providers along any evolution path to full

NFV, utilizing the best of dedicated COTS appliances and virtualized technologies to deliver cost and per-formance efficiencies especially for high scale media functions. Forward thinking service providers are already embracing this hybrid approach, and reaping the rewards of optimizing their networks, while maximizing cur-rent and future opportunities.

Figure 2: SBC Evolution to Hybrid and NFV Architecture

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Figure 3: GENBAND SBC NFV Components

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GENBAND SBC – Modular VNF’s for NFV VirtualizationWith a pioneering approach to NFV that fully embraces the objectives of the ETSI NFV working group, GENBAND’s SBC functionality is modularized into underlying software functions consisting of ACS (Advanced Control Software) for signaling processing, and AMS (Ad-vanced Media Software) for media and transcoding processing. These become Virtual Network Functions (VNFs) in the GENBAND NFV architecture. GENBAND’s SBC VNF components align with the ETSI NFV architecture (see Figure 3):

• SBC ACS VNF - managing SIP signaling and controlling the media resources allocation• SBC AMS VNF - providing the bearer plane interworking, IP flow management, media processing and media transcoding functionality• GENBAND VNF Manager (VFM) - manages the lifecycle of SBC VNFs and on-demand scalability in the cloud. Maps to the ETSI NFV

VNF Manager• GENView Manager OneEMS – element management and provisioning functions for the ACS and AMS VNF applications• GENView Analytics – centralized analytics solution for service visibility and troubleshooting

Each of the SBC VNF’s is logically separate, and independently scalable across multiple instances, including geo-separated deployments. The multiple virtual applications (ACS, AMS, VNF Manager, EMS, and Analytics) are interconnected via an intra-cloud cloud/SDN NFVI network infrastructure of virtual router and switches; and to the external world via extra-cloud SDN network.

Key DifferentiatorsGENBAND’s SBC VNF’s (ACS and AMS) together with the GENBAND VNF Manager (VFM) enable important new functionalities, including those not previously possible with traditional non-NFV architectures:

• Optimization of Data Center Resources using Decoupled Signaling and Media• MxN Topology for Media Resource Sharing across Multiple SBC Signaling VNFs• Software based Media Processing & Transcoding with no Dependency on any Special Purpose Hardware Accelerators• Unique VNF Scalability & Elasticity Approach enabling Significant Operational Advantages• Ease of Deployment and Management using GENBAND Cloud VNF Manager (VFM) into different Orchestration and Virtualization

Infrastructure environments• Enhanced SBC Redundancy & Geo-Redundancy in NFV datacenter• Simplified Centralized Management • Unique Licensing Flexibility and Network Wide Models• Advanced Big Data Analytics for Session Visibility & Troubleshooting • Seamless Evolution to NFV with Hybrid appliance and NFV Deployment Flexibility• Open Ecosystem Support and Compatibility with Multiple Cloud Environments

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• Automated provisioning of elastic resources/applications• Lifecycle VNF management• VNF Licensing, including OPEX pay-per-use model enablement• Automated control of SDN infrastructure

While there are many benefits of GENBAND SBC software architecture, a key GENBAND SBC differentiator and NFV enabler is the decoupling of signaling and media functions. This allows highly flexible, independently scalable and cost effective NFV deployment, enabling the SBC VNF’s to adapt to data center infrastructure in the most flexible manner, including new capabilities not possible with traditional deployment models. This brings considerable savings in network infrastructure capital investments, deployment topology flex-ibility and media asset sharing between VNF functions.

In addition, GENBAND’s media virtualization solution does not rely on any special purpose hardware acceleration; and achieves its performance by leveraging Intel Xeon technologies, which are commonly deployed in datacenters built to run generic applications. GENBAND has demonstrated its ability to elastically scale media transcoding in NFV OpenStack environment; as well as our capabilities to leverage Intel MSDK and GPU acceleration, which are best suited for video transcoding.

GENBAND VNF Manager – Simplifying SBC Elasticity & AutomationThe GENBAND VNF Manager (VFM) is a VNF-Manager (VNF-M) in the ETSI VNF Architecture managing life cycle management of multiple GENBAND VNF’s (such as SBC-ACS and AMS) and interfaces with network orchestrators (NFVO) and virtual network managers (VIM) to ensure elastic scalability of VNF’s based on dynamic network load and/or provisioning state.

Service providers can orchestrate and scale the GENBAND SBC (and other GENBAND VNF applications) as required across their data center locations using the GENBAND VNF Manager (VFM), which provides automated control of elasticity, enabling capacity on demand through:

• Integration with NFVO (NFV Orchestrators) • Automated service turn-up and turn-down• REST API and GUI control of all VNFM Functions• Fully automated control of elasticity

GENBAND’s VNF Manager integrates with various network orchestration platforms, including industry offerings as well as operator-specific implementations. VNF Manager provides indication of all VNF managed events (instantiation, scale-in/out, fault events, alarms, licensing, etc.) and behaves in a stateful manner to interactively request authorization for instantiation and scale-out/down events from the NFVO.

Instantiation and orchestration of VNF’s is a fully automated function of GENBAND’s VNF Manager, with support for on-boarding through templates. Various configuration files are auto-loaded (and are changeable) to configure capabilities such as minimum deployment configu-ration for VNF patterns. Northbound REST, NETCONF, and SOAP/XML APIs enable GENBAND VNF Manager to adapt a larger orches-trated ecosystem, which the service provider may provide to orchestrate VNF’s across multiple vendors per the NFV architecture.

A hardware and hypervisor agnostic approach enables the GENBAND SBC to integrate with any of the leading NFV cloud infrastructure solutions available on the market today. As such, the GENBAND SBC VNF’s are compatible with multiple cloud environments (see Figure 4).

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Figure 4: GENBAND SBC NFV Ecosystem

Simplified Centralized Management, Reporting, and Analytics of SBC VNFsThe overall SBC solution is managed by a virtualized element management system, GENBAND’s GENView OneEMS (Figure 5). GENView OneEMS provides centralized management of configuration, fault, performance, and security for the GENBAND VNF family, including the SBC, enabling the NFV architecture with interfaces to the GENBAND Cloud Manager.

• Provides support for configuration across multiple devices, exposing a REST interface for all operations• Presents a unified SNMP fault interface to an OSS for simple alarm processing and correlation • Summarizes performance metrics for hourly, daily, weekly, and monthly reports

It is a virtualized software-only product that can run standalone, in a High Availability (HA) configuration, or in a full NFV cloud architecture.

Advanced Big Data Analytics for Session Visibility & Troubleshooting An optional component of GENBAND’s GENView solution suite, GENView Analytics collects, displays and analyzes all available network element performance metrics and CDR data produced by GENBAND SBC’s and other network and software elements (Figure 6). With a new powerful, flexible virtualized architecture, and an enhanced interactive ability to visualize and analyze performance metrics, operators can monitor network performance to better understand end to end service quality and quickly troubleshoot and resolve network problems.

GENView Analytics utilizes a new fully virtualized, high performance, software-only architecture, which leverages commercial big data frameworks. GENView Analytics provides advance reporting dashboards with a modern, interactive and intuitive interface that displays vital network KPIs, enabling troubleshooting and advanced system analysis for GENBAND network elements. The benefits of GENView Analytics intuitive user interface include:

• Visualize your Data with dashboards, widgets, charts, tables, graphs, heat maps and various other real time statistics models that are easy and intuitive to create and customize to your preference. Furthermore, the HTML5 interface supports the ability to work across desktop and mobile platforms and browsers

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Figure 5: Virtualized GENView OneEMS & GENView Analytics

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Figure 6: GENView Analytics Network Performance and Call Quality

• Deeper analysis of network performance data and CDR data, enabling service provider to have interactive understanding of the raw data collected from the GENBAND network and software elements

• User defined alerts with signaling and media events across the network. GENView Analytics enables network operators to capture real time alerts as well as conduct deeper analysis of network events that occurred earlier in time

• Export your results and reports via the reporting engine which will automatically schedule reports; and export data via SFTP for sharing with support teams, network partners or other parties

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SummaryThe evolution to NFV represents a major, fundamental shift in a Communications Service Providers operational model. The road to NFV is a journey, and communication service providers are taking incremental steps to migrate their fixed and mobile infrastructures to next gen NFV architectures in order to protect their existing investments while investing in the future.

The expected benefits of deploying virtual SBC’s in the NFV cloud far outweigh any potential challenges. The optimization of data center hardware and resources through elastic scalability, automation and operational simplicity bring significant CAPEX and OPEX savings while enabling faster service rollout, better service agility, and improved quality of service. SBC virtualization offers a great business case and the demand for NFV cloud SBC’s has started, and at a pace that is set to increase.

GENBAND actively works with broad ecosystem of partners such as Intel, Wind River, Ciena, Canonical, Kontron, and is one of only nine technology partners in the HPE OpenNFV Ecosystem. With unique technology advancements, GENBAND is rapidly transforming its entire portfolio of network functions such as SBCs, application servers, soft switches, and WebRTC Gateways to NFV. The benefits and advantages GENBAND brings are designed to help you on your journey to virtualization and provide you with the flexibility to transform at your own pace.

About GENBANDGENBAND, a 2015 CNBC Disruptor 50, is a global leader in real-time communications software solutions for service providers, enter-prises, independent software vendors, systems integrators and developers in over 80 countries. Kandy, its award-winning, disruptive real-time communications software development platform, is built from the company’s global telecommunications network and security technologies. The platform enables these companies to easily embed a full suite of voice, video, chat, screen-sharing and collaboration capabilities into their existing business, web and mobile applications. The company’s Network Modernization, Unified Communications, Mobility and Embedded Communications solutions enable its customers to quickly capitalize on growing market segments and introduce differentiating products, applications and services. GENBAND’s market-leading solutions, which are deployable in the network, on premise or through the cloud, help its customers connect people to each other and address the growing demands of today’s consumers and businesses for real-time communications wherever they happen to be. To learn more visit genband.com.

GENBAND’s NFV solutions, which span its Virtual Network Functions (VNF) portfolio including Session Border Control and Session Rout-ing applications, fully support the key elasticity, scalability and orchestration tenets for cloud and virtualized environments as specified by various standards bodies. GENBAND’s VNF portfolio consists of high-performance, distributed or co-located signaling, control and media communications solutions.

www.genband.com 1-866-GENBAND© 2016 GENBAND Inc. All rights reserved, v30616. The GENBAND logo is a registered trademark of GENBAND Inc. This document and any products or functionality it describes are subject to change without notice. Please contact GENBAND for additional information and updates.

Market Leading SBC for the NFV Cloud

• Decoupled Signaling and Media

• Unique Cloud-native VNF/VM Scalability and Elasticity

• M x N Topology for Media Sharing

• SBC VNF redundancy and geo-resiliency

• Flexible deployment - hybrid to full NFV

• Versatile VNF Manager for ease of deployment

• Simplified central EMS

• Advanced Big Data Analytics

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