Results from a recent ETSI Plugtests event showed near complete success in some NFV test schemes, with work still needed on more complex operations.
The European Telecommunications Standards Institute touted significant success from its recent NFV Plugtests event in Spain, which included network functions virtualization interoperability tests for network service on-boarding, instantiation and termination.
A claimed 160 different combinations of virtual network functions, management and orchestration, virtualized infrastructure manager and NFV infrastructure were tested for interoperability, with more than 1,500 individual test results reported. Specific interoperability testing included 15 virtual network functions, 11 NFV platforms and nine MANO solutions.
Test plans were designed to focus on validating ETSI’s NFV Release 2 end-to-end capabilities, including management of descriptors and software images, and life cycle management of network services and VNFs.
ETSI claimed 98% success for interoperability tests of network service on-boarding, instantiation and termination, but more cautious “encouraging initial results” for more complex operations like scaling and network service updates. The organization said it plans to drive the findings back into its NFV International Standards Group.
“The results for the setup and termination groups were near perfect, achieving almost 100% success for both”, said Pierre Lynch, vice chairman of the NFV Testing, Implementation and Open Source working group, in a statement. “The results for the three other groups, while encouraging, showed that there is still work to be done on those areas. But this is to be expected since the scale operations are quite complex and the specifications have not been completed yet. Receiving feedback on the stage 2 specifications is valuable for the ETSI NFV ISG as they are currently working on data modeling and can take those into account.”
The two-week event, which began in late January, included more than 160 engineers from various vendors and open source projects OPNFV, Open Baton, ETSI Open Source Management and Orchestration, and the Open Orchestrator Project, which The Linux Foundation recently combined with its open source enhanced control, orchestration, management and policy platform into the newly formed Open Network Automation Platform Project.
Arpit Joshipura, GM for networking and orchestration at The Linux Foundation, recently discussed the organization’s reason for the merger, what the reaction has been from group members, what benefits those members should see from the ONAP initiative and how ONAP fits into The Linux Foundation’s other telecommunication industry focused efforts like OpenDaylight and OPNFV.
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