In an energetic panel session at SDN NFV World Congress 2018, three industry experts agreed and disagreed on the current and future state of cloud-based virtualization.
Telcos must do more to help shape cloud-native deployment
Telcos need to be a bigger part of the containerization conversation, say vendors. Solutions that step beyond classic virtualization methods, such as containerization, are being wholly embraced by businesses seeking to ramp up their agility and compete in the big leagues with over-the-top providers in the pursuit of agility, but telco input will go a long way.
“There are events the industry which are discussing containers for four days in a row, and there are networking companies which are also evolving very rapidly [in terms of cloud-based virtualization],” said Alexander Britkin, the CEO and Co-founder, NFWare. “I’m surprised none of the telcos participate in any of those discussions; this means that are not part of shaping what the networking component of Kubernetes looks like.”
Britkin's comments came during an energetic panel session at SDN NFV World Congress 2018 that also included Phil Kippen, Senior Director - NFV Group, VMware, and Ullas Krishnan, Senior Architect - SDN/NFV Services, Infosys. Despite their differing opinions on virtualization topics across the board, the three came together to laud the benefits of containerization. What they couldn’t agree on was when and how containers would finally deploy.
Commonly used virtual machines (VMs) include an entire operating system as well as the application. Containerization allows for running applications inside software containers sitting on top of an operating system; a lightweight alternative to the VMs, essentially virtualizing the operating systems and reducing IT overhead. Cloud-native, virtualized network functions (VNFs) are based on microservices that are deployed in virtualized containers. Panel moderator Patrick Donegan, Founder & Principal Analyst, HardenStance, asked the panel how they assessed deployment of cloud network functions virtualization (NFV) and what the key milestones over the next 12 months would be. Kippen explained that there have been some great attempts by companies such as Verizon and AT&T who have gone straight to cloud-native, and then backpedaled a bit, more or less saying: “We’re still doing this, but we do have, at this point in time, the period of time before we can actually get there and operationalize it; we have to do something to get services to market.” These companies then closed down a lot of data centers that they’d initially built and started to move back to VM-based service delivery.
“I think where we’re at today...we’re at three or four out of ten [in terms of deployment]," Kippen said. "A lot of the platforms and tools are there to get started, but I think there’s also a lot that needs to be developed and brought to market.”
Such needs include application placement. When people and companies start talking about cloud-native, the conversation will involve 5G for its speed and proximity, driving applications into baseband units (BBU) for the modular design, small size, high integration and low power consumption, and driving applications into the cloud RAN for centralization. It is necessary to work out how to place that application in exactly the spot the consumer can best utilize it, which in itself is a considerable challenge.
“We’ve got widespread deployment of Kubernetes today in terms of IT,” asserted Kippen. “We’ve got some service providers successful in using it, and others right now are planning to do it. Whether it can be managed is a great question."
He added: “For the broader landscape around the world [adopting] is probably going to be somewhere around a year and a half; others will adopt much faster.” Kippen’s two suggestions to help bring new platforms that enable intelligent application placement: Britkin rated the state of deployment lower at two out of ten. He believes that in this year and the next, besides perhaps simple use cases, there will be no updates on how to use containers in the core network.
Krishnan’s outlook showed a bit more optimism.
“I would expect a lot more actual vendors to come up with containerized NFVs themselves," he said. "That itself has not really happened; that’s something I’m looking forward to, and at least I’m hearing some things from different vendors.”
Krishnan, however, did agree with Kippen in the sense that while there is a chance for cloud-native applications to be deployed today and managed well, it’s probably a small chance, with smaller use cases. "Not everything can be right now," he said.