We've all heard that saying, "What is under that hood?" That question refers to "the kick-ass" capability not obvious at first glance. Starting today that question will have a new meaning.
A few weeks ago Cisco launched the first NFV solution for the Enterprise -a key component of the new Cisco Digital Network Architecture. Enterprises can now virtualize network services and applications at the branch similar to how servers have been virtualized in the data center and the cloud. Enterprise NFV introduces the best aspects of NFV and SDN, such as programmability, elasticity and automation to the network edge. It will significantly reduce cost and increase speed of service deployments.
A closer look at the engine under the hood of Cisco Enterprise NFV.
That "kick-ass"I referred to above is the Cisco Enterprise NFV Infrastructure Software (#NFVIS). NFVIS is the software platform that implements full life cycle management from the central orchestrator and controller (APIC-EM and ESA) for virtualized services. NFVIS enables the connectivity between virtual services and external interfaces as well as supporting the underlying hardware. You can think of NFVIS as a software virtual platform that has the following key capabilities:
Local web portalthat allows the system to be managed, to create virtual networks, assign physical interfaces, and deploy, add and remove VNF services. For all of the dashboards and tables displayed, the web portal uses the exact REST API set that is available to end users to call as well. Below is just a sneak preview of the NFVIS device portal.
When a new network service needs to be deployed, NFVIS is the software doing the heavy lifting to make the process smooth and seamless to the end user. Here is a breakout of the earlier diagram that shows more details on NFVIS.
One more item illustrated above is Plug-n-Play. This allows NFVIS to receive and execute the profiles created in the ESA orchestrator to automate the deployment. The following diagram illustrates the flow.
In our first release of Enterprise NFV, NFVIS will be supported on the following platforms:
Wrapping it up
In addition to all of the great advantages described so far with NFVIS and the Enterprise NFV solution, here are just a few more highlights:
In a technical whitepaper located here Enterprise NFV Whitepaper, my friend and colleague Matthias Falkner and I provide some guidance for when you would use each type of platform. Also, I'll be giving two new deep technical sessions on Enterprise NFV; one technical breakout and one hands-on session at Cisco Live Las Vegas July 10th to July 14th this summer.
When combining these hardware options with NFVIS, the result is a pretty powerful NFV platform. You can get more information on Enterprise NFV via these resources:
The next blog in this series will cover the background of why we created NFVIS and its uniqueness.