Introduction to

Cisco and Intel

NFV Quick Start
 Cisco Intel NFV Quick Start.
Simplify Virtualization, Encourage Innovation
for Service Providers

Introduction
Customer expectations for network services have evolved
markedly. Customers want a frictionless experience characterized
by easy ordering, self-service, on-demand capacity, and payment
based on consumption. Satisfying these needs means becoming
more agile in service delivery, changing business models, and
interacting with your customers in new ways.

Rapid innovation is critical to staying competitive. Innovation is

needed to drive greater speed and e ciency in operations. It is
also needed to stay ahead of the changing needs for new
services and personalized experiences.

Cisco® NFV Infrastructure. Cisco developed a fully open,

preintegrated, validated system that provides modular building
blocks for creating reliable, repeatable, and high-performance
network function virtualization (NFV) deployments. Cisco NFV
Infrastructure is supported through a single point of contact and
addresses the complexity, deployment, and operational
challenges of NFV across multiple technology providers. Cisco
NFV Infrastructure is based on the industry-leading partnership of
Accelerate your virtualization Cisco, Intel, and Red Hat.
adoption and get help with your
innovation through this unique Cisco and Intel® NFV Quick Start. To help speed the adoption of
NFV services through demonstrations and proofs of concept
environment delivered through the (PoC) tests, the partnership has deployed labs globally. These
Cisco, Intel, and Red Hat labs are equipped with the Cisco NFV Infrastructure comprising a
partnership on NFV comprehensive set of Cisco equipment, Intel technologies, and
Red Hat software. These labs are available to our mutual
Reduce the time for trials and customers to use.

proofs of concept tests from NFV PoC Ready Use Cases. Each of the labs also o ers a suite of
weeks to days. precon gured NFV use cases to help automate and streamline
your demonstrations, PoCs, and trials
Choose between Cisco to host the
activities or host them yourself.
Introduction to
Cisco and Intel Cisco NFV Infrastructure
NFV Quick Start lab The Cisco NFV Infrastructure is a fully validated and tested
system. It comprises the Red Hat Enterprise Linux OpenStack
Platform, the Cisco Uni ed Computing System™ (Cisco UCS®)
server powered by Intel technology, and the market-leading Cisco
Nexus® family of networking equipment.

The Cisco NFV Infrastructure builds a solid foundation that

provides cost e ciency, improves service deployment speed, and
enables new revenues.

Cisco NFV Infrastructure Technical Overview

Based on the standards created by the European
Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI) Industry
Speci cation Group for NFV, Cisco NFV Infrastructure provides
de ned capabilities as an integrated system fully supplied and
supported by Cisco. It is a system optimized for network
performance and is a validated solution o ering carrier-grade
availability. It is backed by a single support contract through Cisco.
This approach addresses the complexity, deployment and support
challenges of OpenStack in a service provider NFV environment.

Virtual Network Functions NFV-O

Resource Orchestration
Cisco Network Services Orchestrator

VNF Manager
Cisco ESC
...extensive por tfolio

Cisco NFV Infrastructure

Automated Installer

Virtualized Virtualized Virtualized API

Compute Storage Network VIM
Management
Assurance

RH KVM RH CEPH VPP RHEL OSP OpenStack < />

Installer

Compute SDN Controller

Cisco UCS on Storage Network
GUI
Intel Technologies Cisco Nexus
Cisco NFV Software for OpenStack

The Cisco NFV Infrastructure features include:

• The physical infrastructure comprising Cisco UCS computing
and storage, Cisco Nexus 9000 top-of-rack switches, and
Cisco SDN controller Virtual Topology System (VTS)

• Red Hat OpenStack for the Virtualized Infrastructure Manager

(VIM) with embedded Red Hat OpenStack, Red Hat Linux,
RHEL Hypervisor, and Red Hat CEPH software de ned
storage
 • A carrier-class container-based deployment of the OpenStack
control plane minimizes any downtime due to updates and
upgrades. It is based on open source Ansible and Kolla projects.
Introduction to
Cisco and Intel NFV • A number of value-added tools, based on open-source projects,
improve the overall operational e ciency:
Quick Start lab
» A container-based installer

» Uni ed monitoring and management, using Cisco UCS Director

cloud automation. It automates end-to-end data center
processes, abstracting the complexity of individual devices,
hypervisors, and virtual machines

» Centralized logging provided through Elastic Stack with the

Kibana dashboard for logs viewing and Elasticsearch for
searching

» Health monitoring of the OpenStack environment using

Cloudpulse to verify that di erent OpenStack services are
responding

» Virtual machine throughput performance (VMTP) to perform

ping connectivity, round-trip time measurement (latency), and
TCP/UDP throughput measurements for any OpenStack
deployment

• Performance optimization using Intel Enhanced Platform

Awareness (EPA) contributions to the OpenStack cloud operating
environment. This feature enables ne-grained matching of
workload requirements to platform capabilities including NUMA
awareness, Huge Pages, CPU pinning, PCI Passthrough and SR-
IOV. To allow high-performance packet processing and
forwarding, FD.io Virtual Packet Processing data plane with Intel
DPDK fundamentals serves as the packet data path for the virtual
machine.

• A highly available and scalable shared infrastructure with data

center switching fabric and network gateways with no single point
of failure. This allows computing nodes to be added without
causing disruption in services

• Advanced lifecycle management through continuous

integration/continuous delivery (CICD) of validated software
updates and upgrades

Completing the Quick Start Lab, the Cisco Network Services

Orchestrator (NSO) and Cisco Elastic Services Controller (ESC)
provide model-driven service and virtual network function (VNF)
lifecycle management for both physical and virtual environments.
 All labs can host demonstrations and PoCs, and support a service
provider's network virtualization initiative.
Labs provide a high-quality experience and tangible results from
initial demonstrations through insertion into production.
NFVI Point Of Deployment (PODs) can be reserved in labs across
Cisco Intel NFV Quick Start: the world. Optionally, PODs can be delivered to a service provider's
Value Proposition premises. Shipped PODs are protected in heavy-duty ight cases.

• Facilitates digitalization through network NFV Use Cases supported in Cisco Hosted and
programmability and virtualization Customer Shipping PODs

• Minimizes NFV adoption risks by using The following use cases are currently supported, validated and
a prevalidated, high performance, documented in Cisco hosted and customer shipped PODs
innovative system
• Mobility: Cisco Virtual Packet Core
• Reduces NFV PoC time from weeks to • Cable: Cisco Virtual CMTS and R-PHY
days • Video: Cisco Video Data Plane for Service Provider
• Orchestration: Orchestrated Cisco VNFs leveraging Cisco NSO
• Provides choice between Cisco hosted and Cisco ESC
labs and hosting yourself, using our
integrated PODs shipped to your Additional scenarios are planned and use cases will evolve at the
location pace of the industry innovation.

Cisco and Intel NFV Quick Start in Summary

• Encourages an environment for co-
development and co-innovation The Cisco, Intel, and Red Hat partnership on NFV provides a unique
environment to fast-track virtualization adoption and facilitate
• Provides a professional environment for innovation. The Cisco and Intel NFV Quick Start program reduces
joint R&D and a fast track to adopt PoC time from weeks to days. Service providers can choose
innovation between Cisco and customer-hosted activities. Multiple hosting
locations are available worldwide. Optionally, PODs can be shipped
to a customer premises.
For more information, visit:
www.cisco.com/go/nfvi
https://networkbuilders.intel.com/ecosystem/cisco-systems

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