Insights from SONATA: Implementing and integrating a microservice-based NFV service platform with a DevOps methodology

• Published in: NOMS 2018 - 2018 IEEE/IFIP Network Operations and Management Symposium pp. 1 - 6
• Main Authors: Soenen, Thomas, Van Rossem, Steven, Tavernier, Wouter, Vicens, Felipe, Valocchi, Dario, Trakadas, Panos, Karkazis, Panos, Xilouris, George, Eardley, Philip, Kolometsos, Stavros, Kourtis, Michail-Alexandros, Guija, Daniel, Siddiqui, Shuaib, Hasselmeyer, Peer, Bonnet, Jose, Lopez, Diego
• Format: Conference Proceeding
• Language: English
• Published: IEEE 01.04.2018
• Subjects: 5G mobile communication; Measurement; Monitoring; Servers; Software; Task analysis
• ISSN: 2374-9709
• DOI: 10.1109/NOMS.2018.8406139

In pursuit of a flexible, resource efficient and high- performant 5G infrastructure, many operators, vendors and research consortia are currently developing, testing and inte­grating their NFV platform with associated management and orchestration (MANO) functionality. The SONATA NFV platform follows a micro-service design, which involves a tight coupling between an SDK, monitoring and MANO functionality, targeting a secure and stable software foundation. This experience paper gives a thorough overview on the encountered challenges, insights and resulting learnings when implementing and integrating the SONATA Service Platform using a continuous integration and delivery DevOps methodology. This is the result of a strong cooperation between prominent equipment vendors, network operators, software companies and universities, providing a set of constructive recommendations in hope of catalysing the development and deployment of NFV platforms.