Service Assurance for Virtual Networks
The majority of the discussion and emphasis in SDN/NFV is currently on deployment, fulfillment and orchestration of virtualized services. But of great importance is an area that, thus far, is being largely overlooked – monitoring and assuring the service once it is deployed. Little discussion is currently being focused on how we will monitor these virtual services once they are deployed. If there is not an end-to-end, and top-to-bottom scalable service assurance solution in place by the time virtual services are deployed, their full potential and benefits will not be realized. Customer experience will suffer without a strategic assurance solution in place that can adapt to the dramatic differences that come with monitoring virtual services as compared to legacy services.
With the transition to a hybrid of legacy and virtualized network infrastructure, and the forthcoming reality of purely virtualized networks in the future, service providers are now realizing the need for a solution that will accommodate these changes. This means that the service assurance solution must have the ability to integrate and correlate information from several different points in the network rather than a single point, as with traditional networks.
Service assurance will need to integrate at the application and control layers as well as directly to the devices at the infrastructure layer, correlate information together in real-time to identify service and customer impact, and also integrate to orchestration systems to facilitate real-time network optimization and remediation based on network performance data.
For this to be made a reality, the service assurance system must be pre-integrated with the various SDN and NFV service layers, with out-of-the-box integration to network devices, element management systems and orchestration systems. Without this, providers may not be able to adapt quickly enough to compete effectively and maintain high quality of customer experience.
The Essential Solution
Given the challenges associated with the transition to virtualized networks, some of the important areas a service assurance solution will need to focus on are issues of network topology, service and application performance, planning for future capacity needs and guaranteeing service-level agreements — all while integrating with the legacy network already in existence.
In addition, service assurance solutions will need to be integrated with OpenStack, OpenDaylight, SDN Controller(s) and Orchestration System(s). The solutions must also have the ability to adapt the virtual service in real-time yet maintain all health and performance historical data as the service evolves. Automated service optimization and remediation, closed loop feedback to assure service integrity and dynamic SLA management to monitor SLAs in real-time even as the service evolves and changes must be supported.
Point-in-time visualization will prove to play a crucial role in allowing service providers to find any particular point back in time, analyze the network or service and see the performance of the service during that exact period. Diagnosing, troubleshooting and triaging problems in live, dynamic virtual networks will rely heavily upon this method and progress.
Overall, service providers must be more proactive and expect to plan ahead in order to effectively assure services in SDN/NFV deployments. In order for virtual services to be successful, service providers must focus on the health of the service and plan for the challenges that are coming as they roll out these services.
