Addressing techniques and metrics for capacity planning and service assurance for SDN/NFV networks. The introduction of NFV and SDN technology means operators increasingly rely on generic infrastructure that can be used to run many different types of application. This approach delivers huge improvements in service velocity and network flexibility while also reducing costs. However, this flexibility means that operators must work to ensure that their infrastructure is correctly dimensioned and resources are matched to services so the performance requirements of all services are met. Launched in January 2017, this Focus Group will develop a framework for NFV capacity planning. This work will ensure that the NFV Infrastructure is dimensioned to meet the needs of the NFV applications it supports across a range of key performance indicators (KPIs). The work will consist of parallel activities to address:
- The characterization of different service types in terms of their critical KPIs and the parameters that describe their infrastructure requirements; and
- An analysis of how to measure KPIs to assess the resource utilization and headroom on operational NFV infrastructure and to identify the specific parameters that should be instrumented in the NFV architecture.
This work completed with the publication of NFV Infrastructure Metrics for Monitoring Virtualized Network Deployments.