Nokia Networks

Nokia Networks
telco cloud is on the brink
of live deployment

With Nokia Networks

multi-stack telco cloud
approach, operators have
the freedom to choose
the cloud platform that
matches their needs.

Telco cloud is becoming

a reality
For many in the telco industry, the concept of the telco cloud is
no longer a question of if, but a question of when it will become
reality. Thats because telco cloud is one of the most frequently
mentioned terms in the industry today, creating widespread
interest. Many operators are investigating its potential and
concluding that telco clouds benefits are too good to ignore.

same hardware and software platform for different network

functions, while automated processes are run using cloud
stacks, especially when deploying new network elements. For
instance, in the core domain an IMS network element in a cloud
environment can be installed and commissioned in a couple
of minutes.

The attractions of the telco cloud are similar to those in the

IT environment, namely lower CAPEX and OPEX and increased
business agility.

Business agility is a further benefit. Operators will be able to

create networks for specific services and/or specific customers
quickly and automatically, meaning that a service such as
Voice over LTE (VoLTE) could be deployed from scratch in
a number of hours. The development and implementation
phases are reduced from months to days, while the inherent
risks involved are minimized and the operators business agility
is increased.

The telco cloud cuts CAPEX through on-demand scalability

and commoditization. It enables operators to shift application
capacity to match service demand, as well as sharing
capacity across and within sites. The use and consolidation of
commodity hardware also reduces the required investment.
Meanwhile, automation and standardization will drive down
OPEX. Operations and maintenance is simplified by using the

In this brochure we look at how Nokia Networks is developing

its Liquid Core solution based on the telco cloud.

Telco Cloud: some definitions of common terms

Cloud computing separates the business from the infrastructure through automated and programmable
data centers using virtualized computing and storage delivered as Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS),
Platform as a Service (PaaS) or Software as a Service (SaaS).
Software Defined Networking (SDN) separates the control plane from the forwarding plane, making the
network programmable via open APIs with a centralized control function.
Network Functions Virtualization (NFV) leverages IT virtualization technology to separate the network
functions from the underlying hardware, enabling the use of non-proprietary, commoditized hardware.
NFV is applicable to any data plane packet processing and control plane function in fixed and mobile
network infrastructures.
Cloud Computing

Software Defined Networking

Network Functions Virtualization*

Elasticity & business agility

Automated, programmable,
SW-defined datacenter
Virtualized compute & storage
IaaS, PaaS and SaaS*

Separation of control and user

data
Centralized control
Network abstraction
Programmable and open API

Use of IT virtualization
technology
Network Functions running on
standard IT hardware
Higher degree of automation
and flexibility

*IaaS, PaaS and SaaS: Infrastructure-, Platform- and Software-as-a-Service; NFV- ref. to ETSI ISG NFV

Nokia Networks telco cloud is on the brink of live deployment 3

Nokia Networks test programs

prove telco cloud readiness
In 2012, Nokia Networks ran several proof of concept
projects to demonstrate the reliability of core virtualization.
These projects provided the technology foundation for core
network element software running on top of a virtualized
infrastructure. In addition, the projects helped identify
telco-specific requirements for cloud computing.
While the proof of concept projects showed it is
straightforward to implement a prototype Liquid Core solution
based on the telco cloud, they also highlighted that existing
IT cloud platforms needed to be adapted significantly to meet
telco demands. For example, the deployment of core network
element software on a virtualized infrastructure needs to be
accompanied by new developments for managing its operation
and in platform security.

Nokia Networks published a white paper, entitled Core

network virtualization: a proof-of-concept, giving an overview
of the results and this can be found at http://nsn.com/
portfolio/liquidnet/liquidcore.
In 2013, Nokia Networks followed up this pioneering work by
carrying out testing to verify end-to-end VoLTE deployment
readiness in a telco cloud and ran several further trials and live
demonstrations. Most recently, Nokia Networks ran a practical
demonstration of telco cloud technology at the IFA trade fair
in Germany in September 2013 with Germanys first live VoLTE
calls being made in a public arena.

A multi-stack strategy to match

operator preferences
Cloud computing is the most rapidly changing environment in
IT and the telco industry, although currently two main cloud
stacks dominate the market.
VMware is one of the pioneers in providing cloud infrastructure
with its vCloud Suite comprising vCenter on the virtualization
layer and vCloud Director as a Cloud Management System.
VMware virtualization and cloud technology are widely
deployed in enterprises and in operator data centers. VMware
and Nokia Networks are co-operating to address requirements
arising from virtual network functions and the Nokia Networks
Liquid Core solution based on telco cloud.
In parallel, the open source software community is building
telco cloud momentum. The OpenStack community is
following this approach to provide flexible cloud technology.
Nokia Networks supports OpenStack by contributing to the
project and associated ecosystems.
To enable operators to take advantage of all approaches,
Nokia Networks advocates a solution that is independent of

4 Nokia Networks telco cloud is on the brink of live deployment

hardware and cloud technology. This enables the virtualized

core network functions and their management function to
support several cloud stacks, beyond the current Openstack
and VMware vCloud Suite. As other cloud stack vendors
become relevant for the telco industry, this Nokia Networks
cloud agnostic approach will ensure they are supported.
As well as the cost savings, core virtualization delivers greater
flexibility in managing network capacity and allows the easy
introduction of new services on the cloud. Nokia Networks
believes that the easiest way to manage the complexity
of network function virtualization (NFV) architecture is to
introduce a three-layered approach:
The virtualized infrastructure layer (bottom layer)
The application and application management layer
(middle layer)
The service management layer (top layer)

Nokia Networks products support a layered Telco Cloud Architecture

OSS/BSS

Orchestration
Federation
Deployment
Monitoring

Service agility and multi-vendor

integration

Service Orchestrator

Operations on Demand (OoD)

NetAct

Elasticity Management

FCAPS* Management

Highest operational eciency

via extreme automation

Cloud Application Manager

Deployment via app. templates

Virtualized network functions

IaaS
API

Virtual
Infrastructure
Manager

Cloud stacks

IMS

Hypervisor

OpenStack

VMware
(vCenter, vCloud)

TAS

MME

S/P-GW Registers

VMware
(ESXi)

KVM

High flexibility via multiple

cloud stack support

Data center Hardware (x86 server)

*FCAPS: Fault, Configuration, Accounting, Performance, Security

The main components of Nokia Networks three-layer approach and the main goals and benefits

Nokia Networks products and solutions principally support

the application and application management layer, and the
service management layer. By not targeting the virtualized
infrastructure market, Nokia Networks can focus fully on
supporting all the different virtualized infrastructure flavors
and vendors without any conflicts of interest. Nokia Networks
fully supports VMware and the Open Stack community and is
ready to co-operate with any virtualized infrastructure vendor.
Multi-vendor integration of the applications can be done
using standardized interfaces between the applications,
as in traditional networks today. These same standardized
interfaces also enable the applications in the telco cloud to be
easily integrated with traditional network elements.
A key issue is the end-to-end management of the network,
spanning both the traditional part of the network and the telco

cloud. The impact on the existing OSS/BSS systems needs to

be minimized in order to achieve smooth and cost-effective
migration.
In addition, vendor-specific application management systems
can be integrated with the service management layer. Service
management needs to manage a service end-to-end, across
traditional network elements and the telco cloud. This includes
end-to-end service and resource orchestration as defined
by NFV.
This approach also minimizes the number of multivendor
integration interfaces and allows the telco cloud to smoothly
interwork with existing non-virtualized network elements that
will continue to exist for many years in hybrid networks and
without creating a new silo.

Nokia Networks telco cloud is on the brink of live deployment 5

Full testing program

for 2013
The 2013 Nokia Networks test program for VoLTE on the
Liquid Core solution based on telco cloud used VMware and
commercial off-the-shelf IT server hardware. The program
tested more than 70 VoLTE functional and telco cloud capability
use cases, emulating the range of testing that an operator
would typically perform when about to go live with a network.
The test program verified the automated deployment and
elastic scaling of virtualized network elements, live migration
of virtual machines from one server to another, and recovery
from hardware failures. The program also carried out several
functional VoLTE tests, such as IMS centralized services with
Camel homing, enhanced SRVCC with transfer of two parallel
calls, offline and online charging, multi-device support, video
sharing and emergency call handling.

Operations on Demand is a resource management

process and daily operation automation tool, providing
carefully designed operational workflows which can be
run by operators in an automated but controlled way. The
Operations on Demand Elasticity Management content pack
helps operators to make the best use of its cloud resources
by the dynamic allocation of physical resources to cope with
decreased or peak traffic loads.
Cloud Application Manager provides cloud stack abstraction
to any management application running on top. It supports
Operations on Demand elasticity management and has
been successfully tested with vCloud Director provided by
VMware and will be extended to support other technologies,
e.g. OpenStack.

The test program incorporated the new OSS functionalities,

Cloud Application Manager and elasticity management with
Operations on Demand.

Cloud Domain Management

Operation on
Demand

NetAct

OAM i/f
IMS

Cloud Application Manager

iNUM

Open TAS

Hypervisor i/f

Cloud API

Virtualization Infrastructure

Cloud Management
System (CMS)

HW Resource Pool

Nokia Networks Telco Cloud laboratory verification reference architecture

Most relevant cloud test program showcases

Nokia Networks successfully ran five main showcases
to prove the capabilities of Operations on Demand and
Cloud Application Manager:
Showcase One: Automated deployment of a new
network element to the cloud
In this showcase, Cloud Application Manager deploys
various network elements into a VMware-based cloud
infrastructure. These complex network elements
comprise many virtual machines connected to each

6 Nokia Networks telco cloud is on the brink of live deployment

other through several network interfaces. Some are also

connected to a central storage.
Cloud Application Manager reserves all the cloud
resources needed, creates the necessary IP
configurations, connects the storage, sets up affinity
rules and other environmental necessities. The newly
deployed elements are preconfigured and are ready
within minutes to be connected to the rest of the
network and serve traffic.

Showcases Two and Three: Scale-in and Scale-out

These showcases demonstrate the capability of the
system to adjust its resource use to the actual traffic
needs. Operations on Demand monitors the load on
the network elements. When the system becomes
overloaded, Operations on Demand initiates a scale-out
operation by triggering Cloud Application Manager to
deploy additional scaling units of the network elements.
During scale-in, when the system loading drops,
Operations on Demand starts a process to remove scaling
units from the load sharing groups, so the load balancers
do not direct new traffic to those units. The system then
waits until the ongoing calls/sessions are finished. Once
the units are empty, Cloud Application Manager stops
the application and the virtual machine, and releases the
resources back to the cloud for other applications.
Scaling-in and scaling-out operations can be fully
automated or configured for semi-automated or
manual mode.
Showcase Four: Resiliency, system recovery and alarm
correlation in NetAct
This showcase demonstrates the ability of the network
elements to automatically recover from a hardware
failure. The loss of a blade carrying several virtual
machines was simulated.
First, the application level redundancy kicks in and
ensures service is not or only minimally affected. The

platform recognizes the blade loss and re-deploys the

lost units on a new blade. The network element is made
fully redundant again. This automated operation happens
within minutes, without human interaction.
The incident initiates several alarms from the different
layers of the system. The virtualization layer sends an
alarm about the loss of a host, while applications report
the restart of the virtual machines on that given host.
NetAct identifies the root cause of these alarms as
being the same and correlates the individual alerts into
a single alarm.
Showcase Five: Virtual Machine live migration
The migration showcase demonstrates the systems
ability to move a live, running virtual machine from one
host computer to another in the virtual infrastructure.
During this operation, the virtual machine is able to
continuously serve traffic without interruption. In the
showcase, the system was 70% loaded, in other words it
was running the allocated CPUs at 70% load.
Once the migration is initiated, the system creates a
copy of the running virtual machine on the target host
by synchronizing the memory of the virtual machines
and running CPU operations in lock-step mode on the
two hosts. As soon as the two virtual machines are fully
synchronized, the system switches to the one on the
target host and removes the original.

Developing multi stack

capabilities
As well as demonstrating the viability of telco cloud capabilities
and a wide range of VoLTE functions, the test program has
spawned greater cooperation between Nokia Networks and
VMware, resulting in new capabilities for the vCloud Suite for
better support of virtualized core network elements running in
the cloud.
In addition, a sponsorship program allows Nokia Networks to
evaluate the capabilities of OpenStack open source software as a
cloud management system for virtualized core network elements.
By adopting a cloud-agnostic approach, Nokia Networks is well
positioned to build on its telco cloud experience and leadership
by taking advantage of common off-the-shelf hardware and
any vendor cloud stack. In its efforts to further develop
carrier-grade cloud technology, Nokia Networks cooperates
with major operators, leading virtualization and cloud
technology vendors such as VMware and industry forums,

members of OpenStack ecosystem and ETSI Network Functions

Virtualization Specification (NFV) Industry Specification Group*.
Nokia Networks has shown how the complete lifecycle of
a network element can be managed remotely via its OSS
including initial network element cloud deployment, monitoring
of virtualized VoLTE application resources, and elasticity
management. Further tests and trials in 2013 and beyond will
aim to test the virtualization of other network elements such
as the packet core and Home Subscriber Server.
In September 2013 at the IFA fair in Berlin, Nokia Networks
proved that its Liquid Core solution based on telco cloud is on
the brink of live deployment with the live implementation of
virtualized VoLTE with a leading global operator.
It is expected that the first Nokia Networks virtualized core
products will be commercially available from 2014 onwards.

* Nokia Networks is an active member of ETSI Network Functions Virtualization (NFV) Industry Specification Group and shares operators objectives to implement
network functions in software, and eliminate proprietary hardware components
Nokia Networks telco cloud is on the brink of live deployment 7

Nokia Solutions and Networks Oy

P.O. Box 1
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Visiting address:
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ESPOO
Finland
Product code C401-01096-B-201410-1-EN
Nokia Solutions and Networks 2014

About Nokia
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mobile technology. Our global experts invent the new capabilities our customers need in their networks. We provide the worlds most efficient mobile networks, the
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