Overview to Cisco NFV Infrastructure
Cisco Network Function Virtualization Infrastructure (NFVI) provides the virtual layer and hardware environment in which virtual network functions (VNFs) can operate. VNFs provide a well-defined network functions such as routing, intrusion detection, domain name service (DNS), caching, network address translation (NAT), and other network functions. While these network functions require a tight integration between network software and hardware in the past, the introduction to VNFs has helped decouple (losely couple) the software from the underlying hardware.
The following figure shows the high-level NFVI architecture.
![](/c/dam/en/us/td/i/400001-500000/410001-420000/412001-413000/412945.jpg)
Cisco NFVI features a virtual infrastructure layer (Cisco VIM) that embeds the Red Hat OpenStack Platform (OSP 10).Cisco VIM includes the Newton release of OpenStack, the open source cloud operating system that controls large pools of compute, storage, and networking resources. Cisco VIM manages the OpenStack compute, network, and storage services, and all NFVI management and control functions. Key Cisco NFVI roles include:
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Control (including Networking)
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Compute
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Storage
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Management (including logging, and monitoring)
Hardware that is used to create the Cisco NFVI pods include:
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Cisco UCS® C240 M4—Performs management and storage functions and services. Includes dedicated Ceph (UCS 240-M4) distributed object store and file system. (Only Red Hat Ceph is supported).
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Cisco UCS C220/240 M4—Performs control and compute services.
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HP DL360 Gen9 – As third party compute.
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Cisco UCS 220/240 M5 (SFF) – In an Micropod environment, expandable to maximum of 16 computes.
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Cisco UCS B200 M4 blades—It can be used instead of the UCS C220 for compute and control services. The B200 blades and C240 Ceph server are connected with redundant Cisco Fabric Interconnects managed by UCS Manager.
The UCS C240 and C220 servers are M4 Small Form Factor (SFF) models where the computes can boot from a pair of HDDs or SSD. Each UCS C240, C220, and B200 have two 10 GE Cisco UCS Virtual Interface Cards. M5 versions in a micropod environment of the UCS C240 and C220 servers are Small Form Factor (SFF) models where the nodes can boot from a pair of HDDs or SSD-based on the BOM type.
The B-Series pod consists of Cisco UCS B200 M4 blades for the Cisco NFVI compute and controller nodes with dedicated Ceph on a UCS C240 M4. The blades and the Ceph server are connected to redundant fabric interconnects (FIs) managed by Cisco UCS Manager. When you install Cisco VIM on a B-Series pod, you can dynamically allocate VLANs on the provider networks for both Virtio and SRIOV using the optional Cisco UCS Manager plugin. The Cisco VIM installer performs bare metal installation and deploys OpenStack services using Docker™ containers to allow for OpenStack services and pod management software updates.
The following table shows the functions, hardware, and services performed by Cisco NFVI nodes.
Function |
Number |
Hardware |
Services |
---|---|---|---|
Management |
1 |
|
|
Control |
3 |
|
|
Compute |
2+ |
|
|
Storage |
3 or more |
SSD and HDD drives must be in a 1:5 ratio per storage node. Storage node configuration options:
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|
ToR |
2 |
Recommended N9K switch software version:
NCS-5500 as TORs or Nexus 9K switches running ACI 3.0 (when ACI is used) |
|
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Internal SSD is the boot device for the storage node. |
![]() Note |
You can use any ToR that supports virtual port channel. We recommend you to use N9K SKUs as TOR, which is released as part of Cisco VIM. When NCS-5500 acts as a TOR, auto-TOR config is mandatory. |
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You can use the automated ToR configuration feature for NCS-5500. |
Software applications that manage Cisco NFVI hosts and services include:
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Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7.4 with OpenStack Platform 10.0—Provides the core operating system with OpenStack capability. RHEL 7.4 and OPS 10.0 are installed on all target Cisco NFVI nodes.
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Cisco Virtual Infrastructure Manager (VIM)—An OpenStack orchestration system that helps to deploy and manage an OpenStack cloud offering from bare metal installation to OpenStack services, taking into account hardware and software redundancy, security and monitoring. Cisco VIM includes the OpenStack Newton release with more features and usability enhancements that are tested for functionality, scale, and performance.
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Cisco Unified Management—Deploys, provisions, and manages Cisco VIM on Cisco UCS servers.
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Cisco UCS Manager—Used to perform certain management functions when UCS B200 blades are installed. Supported UCS Manager firmware versions are 2.2(5a) and above.
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Cisco Integrated Management Controller (IMC)-Provides embedded server management for Cisco UCS C-Series Rack Servers. Supports Cisco IMC firmware versions for the fresh install of Cisco VIM 2.2 is: 2.0(13i) or greater. Because of recent security fixes, we recommend you to move CIMC to 2.0(13n) or higher. Before upgrade of Pod from CVIM 1.0 to CVIM 2.2, it is expected that you manually upgrade to 2.0(13n) or greater. Similarly, CIMC version of 3.0 lineup is supported; for CIMC 3.0. For this, you must choose a version greater or equal to 3.0 (3a).
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Cisco Virtual Topology System (VTS)—It is a standards-based, open, overlay management and provisioning system for data center networks. VTS automates DC overlay fabric provisioning for physical and virtual workloads. This is an optional service that is available through Cisco VIM.
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Cisco Virtual Topology Forwarder (VTF)—Included with VTS, VTF leverages Vector Packet Processing (VPP) to provide high performance Layer 2 and Layer 3 VXLAN packet forwarding.
Two Cisco VNF orchestration and management applications that are used with Cisco NFVI include:
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Cisco Network Services Orchestrator, enabled by Tail-f—Provides end-to-end orchestration spanning multiple network domains to address NFV management and orchestration (MANO) and software-defined networking (SDN). (For information about Cisco NSO, see Network Services Orchestrator Solutions.)
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Cisco Elastic Services Controller—Provides a single point of control to manage all aspects of the NFV lifecycle for VNFs. ESC allows you to automatically instantiate, monitor, and elastically scale VNFs end-to-end. (For information about Cisco ESC, see the Cisco Elastic Services Controller Data Sheet.)
![](/c/dam/en/us/td/i/300001-400000/300001-310000/305001-306000/305580.jpg)
At a high level the NFVI architecture includes a VNF Manager and the NFV Infrastructure.
1 |
|
2 |
Cisco NFVI:
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For cloud networking, Cisco NFVI supports either Linux bridge over Virtual Extensible LAN (VXLAN) or Open vSwitch over VLAN as the cloud network solution for both UCS B- and C-Series pods. However, the UCS B-Series pods using the Cisco UCS Manager plugin supports only OVS/VLAN as a tenant network. Both B-Series and C-Series deployments that support provider networks over VLAN. In addition, in a C-series pod, you can choose to run with augmented performance mechanism by replacing OVS/LB with VPP/VLAN or ACI/VLAN (virtual packet processor). Also, in a C-series pod, you can choose to have the cloud that is integrated with VTC (virtual topology system), which is an SDN controller option.
The Cisco NFVI uses OpenStack services running inside containers with HAProxy load balancing and providing high availability to API and management network messaging. Transport Layer Security (TLS) protects the API network from external users to the HAProxy. Cisco VIM installation also includes service assurance, OpenStack CloudPulse, built-in control, and data plane validation. Day two pod management allows you to add and remove compute and Ceph nodes, and replace controller nodes. The Cisco VIM installation embeds all necessary RHEL licenses as long as you use the Cisco VIM BOM and the corresponding release artifacts.
The following illustration shows a detailed view of the Cisco NFVI architecture and the Cisco NFVI Installation flow.
![](/c/dam/en/us/td/i/400001-500000/420001-430000/421001-422000/421833.jpg)