SDN standardization
Landscape from ITU-T Study Group 13
Takashi Egawa
Rapporteur, Question 14, Study Group 13
Copyright (C) 2013 NEC Corporation. All rights reserved.
To make everything virtual is a long-time dream
▐ A textbook written in ‘80s discussed ‘software definable network’
▐ If we could make a pool of network resources and realize
everything as its instances…
(servers, firewalls, all appliances are specialized computers. If you can ignore
performance, non-specialized computers can become anything)
Abundant computers, enormous processing power,
ubiquitous links, switches, abundant storages,
… are shared among purposes/customers…
Purpose
Temporary,
local ICT system
Global ICT
infrastructure
Highly secure,
closed network
▐ Then we are free from hardware restrictions!
all difficulties will go to complicated system|software architecture, and its
management
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Now is time to move one step forward
▐ Many ICT resources are becoming REALLY abundant
 CPU performance is still increasing, end-users don’t care it anymore
 The amount of memory and storage are still increasing
 Access links are fast enough to be shared among multiple purposes
Gbps access is too much for email and simple web!
 No problem. Greedy human beings are now shouting ‘I need
my dedicated system’. Let them get it
▐ Computing resources are already virtualized. Network’s turn
▐ The myth of ‘distributed system is good’ is waning, finally
 Telco industry said so for years, and Internet industry now agrees
centralized system is good in some areas
 Good time to re-visit fundamental telecom network
architecture
OK, let’s check how far we can go at 2013, 16, 20!
And discuss what we should do now
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Copyright (C) 2013 NEC Corporation. All rights reserved.
Various activities are discussing specific part
OSS
Each cloud service
SDO
User
Terminal
Open Stack Cloud stack
OpenDaylight
Network Services
ETSI
SG11, 13
IETF
BBF
ONF
NFV
Access
Core transport
transport
Q.12/15
OIF
management
Applications
TMF
▐ Collaboration with already ongoing SDOs/open source activities is
the key to the success of SDN standardization
▐ Nobody discuss the overall architecture of vast telecom industry
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An important question nobody is trying to answer
At international cloud interconnection with SDN…
Country A
Cloud provider
Country B
Telco carrier
Country B
End-user
Cloud
service
SDN
controller
transport
SDN
controller
applet
transport
▐ Country A cloud service provider requests change to Country B carrier
network through east-west IF of SDN. Or through end-user’s applets.
▐ Security, privacy policy coordinated with cloud’s policy? How about billing?
▐ Is overall architecture OK?
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Copyright (C) 2013 NEC Corporation. All rights reserved.
ITU’s role, SG13’s view
▐ Important issues remain in public networks’ SDN, in particular in its
international interconnection
 Easily manageable, secure, privacy-friendly architecture coordinated
with cloud computing is the key to the success of SDN for
internationally interconnected public networks
 International standards are indispensable for this goal
▐ Collaboration and coordinate with non-ITU activities indispensable
 Various SDOs and Open Source Software (OSS) community has
started developing SDN building blocks in specific areas
In NGN, we referred many standards outside of ITU. Let’s do it again
 SG13 therefore proposes to establish Joint Coordination Activity on
SDN (JCA-SDN) for collaboration and coordination
▐ To start with, we need industry-wide consensus about SDN
 Once we establish a base, we can discuss SDN for particular area
(NGN, cloud, security, etc.) on each specific group (Q.)
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SDN related activity in SG13 and other SGs
▐ In SG13, SDN and network virtualization had been discussed as a part of
Future Network activity
 Service awareness as one of the four objective of Future Networks:
services will increase and diverse even more in the future, and networks have
to be designed to manage this
 SDN and network virtualization are important mitigation technology
 Finished: Y.3001 (Future networks: Objectives and design goals), Y.3011
(Framework of network virtualization for future networks
 Ongoing: Y.FNvirtreq (Requirement of network virtualization for Future
Networks)
▐ The discussion on SDN itself has started
 Y.FNsdn (Framework of Telecom SDN)
 Y.FNsdn-fm (Requirements of formal specification and verification methods
for software-defined networking)
 Y.S-NICE-reqts (Requirements and capability framework for NICE
implementation making usage of software-defined networking technologies)
▐ SG11 started reqs. and architecture discussion for SDN signaling
▐ SG15, 17 is interested in SDN
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SG13’s proposed roadmap
Open stack, Cloud stack
ETSI
NFV ONF OIF TMF IETF BBF
Collaboration and coordination
Q14/13
Figure from
TD-18 (TSAG)
Gaps
Common
SDN
Common SDN
2013
ITU-T SDN
2014
2015 ~ 2016
Y.SDN -FR
Functional requirements and architectures
Q14/13
of common SDN
Q14/13
New1/13
Qs/13
New2/13
Use Cases
Q11/13
Q 6,8,9/13
Q2, 3/13
Functional requirements of ITU
-T SDN
Functional architectures and mechanisms
of ITU-T SDN
Analysis of Regulatory
implications
of SDN and future networks
SDN Interworking requirements and functions
Common capabilitiesQoS,
( Security, Mobility) and
mechanismsto support SDN
Use of SDN into existing networks such as NGN
-e
▐ Minimum consensus on ‘what’s SDN in ICT industry’ as ‘common SDN’
 A topic at Q.14/13 as well as JCA-SDN
▐ ITU-T and SG13 then develops ITU-T specific SDN in various groups (Qs)
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Conclusion
▐ SDN has historical basis
 Good starting point to make consensus of what is SDN
▐ Important issues remain in public networks’ SDN, in particular in its
international interconnection
▐ Collaboration necessary with other SDOs and OSS communities
 SG13 proposes to establish JCA-SDN
▐ To start with, we need industry-wide consensus about SDN
▐ SG13 and other SGs has already started SDN activity in this
direction, which originated in Future Networks activity
 Many Qs in SG13 are and will be involved in this SDN activity
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Copyright (C) 2013 NEC Corporation. All rights reserved.