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Category Archives: Uncategorized

Telco Bits & Bytes – 9 July 2020

Our regular roundup of the technology news that matters

Welcome to the next edition of our ‘Telco Bits & Bytes’ news blog. Here we share news and insights from across VMware and the technology industry that caught our attention, so you don’t miss a beat. Let us know in the comments below how we can improve this service and enjoy!

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Telco Bits & Bytes – 25 June 2020

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Our regular roundup of the technology news that matters

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VMware vCloud Director 9.7 Appliance Installation

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Starting with version 9.7, the vCloud Director appliance includes an embedded PostgreSQL database with а high availability (HA) function. Whereas vCloud Director on Linux uses an external database that needs to be installed and configured before you install vCloud Director on Linux.

You can create a vCloud Director server group by deploying one or more instances of the vCloud Director appliance with first member as a primary cell and a subsequent member as a standby or vCD application cell. You deploy the vCloud Director appliance by using the vSphere Client (HTLM5), the vSphere Web Client (Flex), or VMware OVF Tool.

This blog post describes deploying vCloud Director server group using VMware OVF Tool. You can use the Deploy OVF from vCenter to deploy the appliances using single OVA file that displays 5 different deployment configurations to choose from: Primary node (small and large), Standby node (small and large) and vCD Cell Application node. The large vCloud Director primary appliance size is suitable for production systems, while the small is suitable for lab or test systems.

For more details visit vCloud Director Installation, Configuration, and Upgrade Guide

Note **

Mixed vCloud Director installations on Linux and vCloud Director appliance deployments in one server group are unsupported.

The vCloud Director appliance does not support external databases.

To create deployment with a database HA cluster, we deploy one instance of the vCloud Director appliance as a primary cell, and two instances as standby cells (In this example we deploy only one standby cell). However if you have a production environment we recommend 2 standby cells deployment. vCD application cells connect to the database in the primary cell.

Recommended datastore for the appliance deployment is a vSAN datastore with redefined policy.

Next regarding network configuration, starting with version 9.7, the vCloud Director appliance is deployed with two networks, eth0 and eth1, so that you can isolate the HTTP traffic from the database traffic. Different services listen on one or both of the corresponding network interfaces. First interface eth0 is primarily used for services such as http – ports 80, 443, console proxy – port 8443, jmx – ports 61611, 61616. Second interface(eth1) is used for services such as database communication (port 5432). Both interfaces are used for services such as ssh, management UI, etc. Ensure you define these interface subnets based on your testbed requirements. Here we use IP addresses in same subnet for both the interfaces.

Note **

After you deploy the vCloud Director appliance, you cannot change the eth0 and eth1 network IP addresses or the hostname of the appliance. If you want the vCloud Director appliance to have different addresses or hostname, you must deploy a new appliance.

To see if the deployments succeeded, you can use the eth0 IP address of the primary cell to login to the Admin provider portal or you can check status of the cell by logging into the appliance management user interface at https://vcd_ip_address:5480.

In order to deploy standby cells, use same steps to deploy an appliance with deployment configuration as Standby small. Once deployed, embedded databases are configured in a replication mode with the primary database.

Note**

After the initial standby appliance deployment, the replication manager begins synchronizing its database with the primary appliance database. During this time, the vCloud Director database and therefore the vCloud Director UI are unavailable.

Once deployment is successful, you can verify the Database High Availability Cluster status by logging to either of cells admin portal or appliance management user interface.

What to do next:

If a standby cell is not in a running state, deploy a new standby cell.

If the primary cell is not in a running state, Recover from a Primary Database Failure in a High Availability Cluster.

Detailed step by step demo videos can be found on our Telco YouTube Channel

Load Balancing vCloud Director with NSX

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This blog post is to show how to load balance vCloud Director cells with NSX-T. To use logical load balancers, you must start by configuring a load balancer instance which is deployed into the NSX-T Edge Cluster. You can configure load balancer in different sizes that determines the number of virtual servers, server pools, and pool members the load balancer can support.

For more details refer to Scaling Load Balancer Resources.

Create a Logical Switch

From NSX-T Manager UI create a VLAN Logical Switch, and provide the VLAN id. In this example, VLAN 0. Advance Networking & Security > Networking > Switches >Add New Logical Switch

Create Tier-1 Router

On NSX-T UI, deploy a new standalone Tier-1 Router

Add a new logical Router Port on the newly created Tier-1 Router as Centralized Service Port, connecting it to the logical switch which we created earlier.

Under the Subnets, Add an IP address and subnet which will be used as the load balancer virtual IP address in later steps.

Add Load Balancer

Now we can create load balancer instance and associate the virtual servers with it. Create the LB instance on the Tier 1 Gateway which routes to your VCD cell network. Make sure the Tier 1 Gateway runs on an Edge node with the proper size (see the doc link before).

Advance Networking & Security > Networking > Load Balancers > Add

In this example we use following:

Name: VCD_LB
Size: small

First, we need to attach the Tier-1 router created in previous step.

Load Balancers > VCD_LB Overview > Attachment > Edit

Add Active Monitor

Next, we configure an active health monitor which will perform health checks on load balancer pool members according to the active health monitor parameters.

Create new monitor in Advance Networking & Security > Networking > Load Balancers > Monitors > Add New Active Health Monitor

Health Check Protocol: LbTcpMonitor
Monitoring Port: 443
default Interval, Fall Count, Rise Count, Timeout Period

Add Server Pools

Create a server pool and vCloud Director cells as the pool members. NSX-T Server Pools are used to handle traffic for use by the virtual server.

Create new Server Pool in Advance Networking & Security > Networking > Load Balancers > Server Pools > Add New Server Pool

Load Balancing Algorithm: Round Robin
TCP Monitoring: Disabled(defaults)
SNAT Translation: Auto Map
Pool members: Add vCloud Director Cells IPs
Health Monitor: Created in above step

Add Virtual Servers

Create new virtual server in Advance Networking & Security > Networking > Load Balancers > Virtual Servers > Add New Virtual Server

Application Type: Layer 4 TCP
Application Profile: nsx-tcp profile
Virtual Server Identifier: IP address of Tier 1 logical port defined above
Port: 443, 80
Protocol: TCP
Server Pool: Created above
Load Balancing Profile: nsx-default source-ip persistence profile

Attach the load balancer created above to this virtual server. Advance Networking & Security > Networking > Load Balancers > Virtual Servers >LB-VirtualServer>Loab Balancers>Attach

Verify that the Operational Status is Up

In this network topology the load balancer virtual IP and vCloud Director cells IP are in the same subnet and reachable from outside world. If you have an internal IP you need to set up NAT such that load balancer virtual servers are available both from outside (Tier-0 Gateway) and internal networks.

To ensure that the vCloud Director cells connect to the public load balancer virtual IP, URL needs to be configured in vCloud Director public addresses.

Now you may enter the “load balanced URL” to access the vCloud Director provider admin portal for successful verification of the configuration.

You can view this demo on our VMware Telco YouTube channel:

Telco Bits & Bytes – 14 May 2020

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Our regular roundup of the technology news that matters

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Telco Bits & Bytes – 30 April 2020

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Announcing VMware User Group for Telecoms Services and Operations

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Announcing the VMware Telecoms Services and Operations User Group

In November I posted a blog overviewing an invitation-only Telco user forum, held on alongside VMworld Europe. Over 20 representatives from 10 customers began the process of building the first VMware community for Communication Service Providers (CSPs). The community will focus on supporting telecom infrastructure and services projects.

Delegates meet at Telco Customer Forum, November 2019. Barcelona

I’m delighted to announce that the Telcoms Services and Operations VMUG is now live!

Delegates agreed that the new community should meet through a combination of online and face-to-face activities. Coronavirus has had a massive impact on all our lives and face-to-face activity is no longer an option for the foreseeable future. Thankfully, VMUG is a fantastic online community platform.

Our first event will be on April 21^st 2020: An Introduction to VMware Telco Cloud. You can register here or through the VMUG Group page. The webinar will provide the context for follow-on, deeper dives and highlight some key technologies including Orchestration and Assurance.

Get Involved!

If you are part of a team planning or operating virtualised telecom infrastructure including NFV, or the next wave of Enterprise services such as SD-WAN, join the conversation by joining the Telecoms Services and operations VMUG or contacting memberservices@vmug.com for more information.

I would like to thank the teams at Telia, BT, TalkTalk, Vodafone, Swisscom and MTS for their input and support that has led to the creation of this group.

About VMUG: Officially launched in August of 2010, the VMware User Group (VMUG) is an independent, global, customer-led organization, created to maximize members’ use of VMware and partner solutions through knowledge sharing, training, collaboration, and events.

Telco Bits & Bytes – 19 March 2020

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Our regular roundup of the technology news that matters

Welcome to the first edition of our ‘Telco Bits & Bytes’ news blog. Here we share news and insights from across VMware and the technology industry that caught our attention, so you don’t miss a beat. Let us know in the comments below how we can improve this service and enjoy!

VMware Bits

Industry Bytes

For daily updates, follow us on LinkedIn and our website

Introducing Telco Cloud Automation

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Accelerate network agility with VMware Telco Cloud Automation™

Today we announced VMware Telco Cloud Automation general availability (GA)—VMware’s next-generation telco cloud orchestrator (previously announced under the name, Project Maestro). VMware Telco Cloud Automation transforms the CSP’s telco cloud experience and delivers tremendous value through unified lifecycle management automation, multi-cloud agility and improved MANO interoperability.

Many communications service providers (CSPs) have set their sights set on the cloud in hopes of achieving operational agility, lower costs, and network resiliency while also delivering an exceptional service experience to their customers. However, the cloud is evolving quickly, both in terms of technology and multi-cloud expansion; and this doesn’t necessarily align with the traditional CSP’s carrier-grade technology adoption pattern. It’s a big shift that serves up new challenges in terms of learnings, growing complexity, and interoperability – especially as you bridge physical and virtual ecosystems. In a nutshell, as the cloud and networks evolve with containers, 5G and MEC, the challenge to contain operational costs will become increasingly more difficult. We are today at a crucial moment– and CSPs that build a foundation that enables them to innovate quickly and control their operational costs will have a distinct advantage over their current competitors and OTT players.

The good news is that CSPs can bypass much of the complexity with VMware Telco Cloud Automation, a new orchestrator that accelerates time to market for network functions and services while igniting operational agility through simplified automation—across any network and any cloud.

VMware Telco Cloud Automation

Figure 1: VMware Telco Cloud Automation

An orchestration and automation platform for the telco cloud

VMware started this journey back in 2016, by assessing the market and listening to customer requests. Our findings were twofold. First, CSPs must implement orchestration and automation as soon as possible to improve efficiency and to ensure readiness for future cloud network innovations. Second, most of the MANO solutions on the market today are designed around telco vendors’ vantage points with traditional pros and cons (vendor lock-in, heavy integration costs, etc.). These all share a fundamental flaw: none have fully taken advantage of the cloud’s capabilities over time, nor have they tapped into possibilities associated with the multi-cloud. To this end, we’re applying VMware cloud expertise and designed a new cloud-first approach to MANO, a strategy that abstracts much of the cloud complexities and exposes the new multi-cloud ecosystem through standard telco interfaces (following ETSI standards). At the very heart of this approach is VMware’s ability to build native integrations at each layer and to continuously synchronize the bottom infrastructure stack (VIM/NFVI) with the upper MANO stack (NFVO/VNFM).

This new approach allows the service and application layers to be cloud/multi-cloud aware and to leverage all available data centers as a shared pool of resources. It also enables more savvy policy/placement decisions that avoid rollbacks, a major problem in most of today’s MANO implementations.

Figure 2: Difference between traditional blueprint-first and VMware new cloud-first approach

By applying this cloud-first philosophy combined with a standards-based and a network function vendor-neutral position, VMware Telco Cloud Automation helps CSPs to:

Orchestrate and automate network functions/services with multi-cloud agility from the core to the edge, and from private to public cloud.
Unify the management of network functions of any vendor on VM-based and Container-based infrastructures (ETSI standard-compliant VNF/CNF/PNF).
Streamline the orchestration journey with native VIM integrations and a pluggable architecture following ETSI-MANO standards.
Enable a thriving multi-vendor telco cloud ecosystem with standard interfaces and the certification of partner’s network functions from the NFVI to the NFVO.

Vetted by customers and partners

From day one, we have worked with customers and partners to create a product adapted to their needs. We are thankful to them for all the guidance provided and the time they’ve devoted to proof the product’s capabilities.

As a positive response, VMware is already engaged in Beta trials with several customers. More notably, the platform is being rolled out in various Opcos of a large Tier 1 carrier, supporting its next-generation automation initiative. As part of that project, VMware Telco Cloud Automation manages the orchestration and automation of hundreds of network functions and services for both 4G and 5G networks – plus the implementation of new cloud-native 5G network services.

A fundamental aspect of any MANO solution is its ability to evolve in a multi-vendor ecosystem. As an infrastructure provider for many years, VMware already has a robust group of VNF partners certified on its technology (150+ VNFs certified from all major equipment providers). And, as part of our Telco Cloud Automation efforts, we’ve worked with many of these partners to integrate their VNFs and now CNFs, including Affirmed Networks, Metaswitch, Altiostar, Mavenir, Altran, VeloCloud, and Avi Networks. The Ready for NFV Program, extended for VMware Telco Cloud Automation, will open soon after this announcement. Any partner can submit a certification request today and will be contacted once the certification program becomes available.

A closer look at the core capabilities and features provided with this version:

The core capabilities for VMware Telco Cloud Automation can be grouped into four areas:

Generic VNF Management (G-VNFM) unifies and standardizes network function management across physical (PNF), VM (VNF) and Container-based (CNF) infrastructures.
NFV/Domain Orchestration (NFVO) simplifies the design and management of centralized and distributed multi-vendor network services (chaining PNF/CNF/VNF).
Multi-Cloud Infrastructure Management abstracts cloud complexity, eases VIM registration, synchronizes inventories/resources, and collects faults and performance from infrastructure to network functions.
Policy and Placement engine enables intent-based and multi-cloud workload/policy placements from the network core to edge, and from private to public clouds.

Figure 3: VMware Telco Cloud Automation & multi-VIM integrations

A set of features to simplify and transform network operations

Native VIM/Kubernetes integrations. VMware Telco Cloud Automation integrates natively with VMware vCloud NFV 2.1/3.2.1/3.3 (vCD/OpenStack editions), VMware Cloud (VMC) 1.9, VMware Tanzu Kubernetes Grid (TKG) Cluster API 1.16 (w/ Helm support for resource description).
Multi-cloud, multi-VIM registration. The multi-VIM registration process allows CSP to easily add multiple VIMs to Telco Cloud Automation. Through its local VIM distributed component, it auto-discovers all required VIM/tenant configurations without needing API integration or complex commands to execute.

Figure 4: Multi-cloud – multi-VIM

Figure 5: Simplified VIM registration

Continuous VIM synchronization. Once registered, the VIM automatically synchronizes with Telco Cloud Automation, providing real-time information about its configurations, state, faults/performance (FM/PM) and inventories – from resources (CPU, storage, memory, etc.) to network, deployed VMs and network functions.
Single pane of glass. The orchestrator lets you view all elements of your telco cloud in a centralized location, from network services and network functions to the cloud virtual infrastructure. CSPs can quickly assess the state of all components and their performance, and trigger automatic actions to remediate identified issues.

Figure: 6: Telco Cloud 360° awareness

Access all network functions and services in a single location. The centralized catalogs offer access to all onboarded network functions (PNF/CNF/VNF) including those onboarded using VMware Telco Cloud Automation and others managed through third-party S-VNFM (see southbound integrations). Similarly, all onboarded network services are available in a centralized catalog.
Easily onboard any network function and service. VMware Telco Cloud Automation enables onboarding of SOL001/004-compliant network functions and services. Once onboarded, the network functions and services are added to their respective catalogs for review and instantiation. Note that the VMware Ready for NFV program lets VNF partners certify VNFD and package on VMware vCloud NFV and VMware Telco Cloud Automation.
Design network functions and services through an easy-to-use visual composer. The visual composer provides an end-to-end environment to design new or modify existing ETSI-MANO compliant TOSCA templates. The network function template integrates elements such as VDU/HELM, network, resources, automation interfaces, and other artifacts. Similarly, network services can chain network functions from different vendors and technologies (VNF/CNF/PNF). In parallel to the design, the solution generates a YAML source file as part of the package that can be further edited. Once saved, the ETSI compliant package is automatically onboarded or can be downloaded.

Figure 7: VNF/CNF onboarding and design

Figure 8: TOSCA-template network service visual composer (also available for CNF/VNF design)

Customize automation processes. VMware extends ETSI-MANO standard automation capabilities with custom workflows enabled through interfaces. Telco Cloud Automation integrates natively with VMware vRealize Orchestrator (vRO) to trigger—and simplify—the design of new custom workflows. CSPs can also easily reuse any existing VNF workflows created through vRO.
Intent-based placement. Continuous synchronization between Telco Cloud Automation and the VIM enables effective intent-based placement. Telco Cloud Automation automatically optimizes workload placement on the most suitable cloud, matching the descriptor requirements with the cloud profiles. These cloud profiles include available resources, networks and VIM-specific capabilities (e.g., SR-IOV, DPDK, etc.).
Distribute workload placements. The orchestrator lets CSPs take full advantage of their multi-cloud ecosystem, distributing workloads among multiple clouds. As part of the network service instantiation process, CSPs can assign clouds in similar or different locations, and each network functions part of the service. The right transport network is then assigned to provide connectivity across sites.
Hybrid cloud placements. CSPs can now take advantage of public clouds as an alternate set of resources. Telco Cloud Automation allows for workload placement and mobility across both private and public clouds such as AWS, Microsoft Azure and Google (via VMware VMC).

Figure 9: Multi-cloud and hybrid placement

Automate lifecycle management. The orchestrator offers automation capabilities driven by a policy engine that executes standard closed-loop policies described in VNFD and NSD, plus custom defined workflows. These policies apply to the entire lifecycle management (day 0; day 1; day 2 operations – instantiate, heal, scale, update, etc.) of network functions and services for lean operational processes. They also remove complicated, tedious and repetitive tasks while maximizing overall resource utilization through dynamic scaling and multi-cloud workload mobility.
Auto-action operations. The orchestrator allows actions to be triggered from various decision points including NFVO, G-VNFM and Element Manager.
Tailored governance. Telco Cloud Automation combines multi-tenancy and role-based access control to enable a tailored governance model. The multi-tenancy allows the isolation of network functions and services to specific group(s) (and/or Opcos) while the roles-based access control enables data and operation segregations (e.g., NFVO, VNFM, VNF Designer, Voice VNF Manager, etc.). These governance capabilities apply to both GUI and API interactions.

A product that speaks telco and cloud

VMware Telco Cloud Automation supports core ETSI-MANO guidelines for telco component interoperability and leverages native integration with VIM and Kubernetes for northbound interfaces (e.g., placement, KPI collection, etc.). This architecture provides a streamlined and flexible approach for orchestrating telco standards-compliant workloads on a fast-evolving multi-cloud ecosystem. CSPs can interact with telco standards and allow Telco Cloud Automation to translate the requirements in cloud capabilities.

Telco standardized interfaces facilitate Telco Cloud Automation deployment and interactions within a multi-vendor MANO architecture. Here’s a list of supported interfaces:

VNF descriptor definition and package IFA011/SOL001 and IFA014/SOL004
S-VNFM integration to NFVO through IFA007/SOL003
EMS integration to G-VNFM and NFVO through IFA008/SOL002
Service Orchestrator/Service Assurance/OSS/BSS integrations to NFVO through IFA013/SOL005 and relevant TMF API’s

Figure 10: Southbound interfaces

Northbound VIM interfaces are supported by Telco Cloud Automation through native integrations with VMware vCloud NFV 2.1/3.2.1/3.3 – (vCloud Director and VMware Integrated OpenStack editions), VMware Cloud (VMC) 1.9, and Tanzu Kubernetes Grid (TKG) – Cluster API 1.16 (w/ Helm support for resource description).

Accelerate the network transformation journey while controlling operational costs

CSPs switching to the network cloud can now do so with great ease thanks to VMware Telco Cloud Automation. Its broad feature set simplifies and expands your capabilities, delivering consistency from infrastructure to network services. The latest addition to VMware’s growing cloud portfolio, VMware Telco Cloud Automation empowers CSPs with a solution that streamlines the orchestration journey, enables a thriving multi-vendor ecosystem and delivers the multi-cloud agility that modern networks require.

Learn more about VMware Telco Cloud Automation, the new telco cloud orchestrator for CSPs brought to you by VMware:

Online
- Telco Cloud Automation – Website
- Telco Cloud Automation – Press Release

Roll Up! See how VMware and Dell Technologies accelerates your 5G journey from Core, to Edge, to Device at MWC 2020

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Communication Service Providers (CSPs) are now on the road to deploying 5G. The journey will be exciting for some and certainly have its twists and turns for others. At VMware, we’re working to smooth the highway ahead for CSPs and accelerating their journey so they can deliver a successful cloud centric 5G network quicker. This will help them improve the customer experience and generate new revenues with innovative applications and services at the Edge. Would you like to see what that trip looks like? We thought so and we’re happy to share this journey with you at a certain large tech event happening soon?

At MWC 2020 in Barcelona, we’ll be mapping the way with a variety of demonstrations at the Dell Technologies and VMware stand 3M11 in Hall 3. Enjoy an all-encompassing experience complete with augmented and simulated reality demos, showcasing our 5G telco cloud solutions and the latest in modern networking solutions for you to test drive.

No matter where you sit in your organization, we can put you in the driving seat with a demo applicable to your business. Telco Cloud. Private Cloud. Multi-Cloud. Edge. SD-WAN. Enterprise Services. Consumer Services. End User Computing. We’ve got something for everyone!

We will show you how CSPs are deploying next-gen 5G networks using our solutions all the way from the Core, to the Edge, to the Device. With our team of subject matter experts on hand to navigate you through the latest developments from VMware and Dell, here’s some of what you can see…

Starting at the Core

In addition to the full range of our Telco Cloud Products and Solutions on show, we’re excited to show you our 5G Network Operations Center (NOC). Come and see how you can manage and orchestrate 5G services and view how your existing network topology can be monitored and analyzed all the way from the network to the subscriber, all using VMware’s Telco Cloud solutions.

Accelerating to the Edge

Along with our partners and the latest in Dell Edge infrastructure hardware, we’ll also show you the latest and greatest in 5G Edge Services for Consumers and Enterprises. Edge Services unleash low latency and high bandwidth capabilities, and we’ve got some great examples of how these will be practically deployed on VMware’s Telco Cloud platform and managed at the application layer.

For consumers, we will be showing off augmented reality based real-time services developed with our partners MobiledgeX, Vuzix and Zoi. Using AR glasses, we’ll be translating and transcribing conversations in real-time at the Edge.

For enterprise services, we’ll be demonstrating how you can interact and collaborate in virtual reality at the Edge. Again, with our partners MobiledgeX and a leader in simulated reality, Dimenco, we’ll use interactive 3D screens and ultra-haptics to show off some low-latency, real-time collaboration.

The VeloCloud, now a part of VMware, team will also be in attendance to show how you can power up your performance across any application, any cloud and any device. Using their market leading SD-WAN solutions and the latest 510LTE device, watch demos of network slicing, UCaaS and maintaining uptime and connectivity in brownout and blackout scenarios.

Finishing on the Device

Finally, we’ll be showing off the many advantages of using Workspace One, a single platform that creates a digital workspace that will excite and energize employees, increase IT and employee productivity with rapid deployment and enrollment of applications, administration and remote management of any device (including wearables), coupled with the speed of 5G.

So, make space in your Barcelona road trip to come and learn how your 5G journey can proceed smoothly and speedily from Core, to Edge, to Device at the Dell Technologies and VMware stand in Hall 3. Remember, there are other ways to meet with us at this year’s event and you can learn more about presence at MWC 2020 here.

We look forward to meeting you in Barcelona!