{"id":1355,"date":"2019-03-08T21:28:50","date_gmt":"2019-03-09T05:28:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/live-infoblox-blog.pantheonsite.io\/?p=1355"},"modified":"2020-05-06T10:27:00","modified_gmt":"2020-05-06T17:27:00","slug":"en-route-to-cloud-native-network-functions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.infoblox.com\/blog\/company\/en-route-to-cloud-native-network-functions\/","title":{"rendered":"En Route to Cloud-Native Network Functions"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Cloud Native Computing Foundation, or CNCF, just announced the\u00a0launch<\/a>\u00a0of a new project named the \u201cCNF Testbed<\/a>,\u201d which aims to help the community evaluate and compare networking performance between Virtual Network Functions (VNF) and Cloud-native Network Functions (CNF).<\/p>\n

In this blog post we will dive into the definition of VNF and CNF and discuss their impact on the stack of the network virtualization, in light of this testbed project.<\/p>\n

\"En<\/p>\n

Cloud Native: A Definition<\/strong><\/p>\n

The CNCF\u00a0proposes a definition of \u201cCloud Native\u201d development<\/a>\u00a0in these terms: it consists of\u00a0\u201cusing open source software stack to be containerized, where each part of the app is packaged in its own container, dynamically orchestrated so each part is actively scheduled and managed to optimize resource utilization, and microservices-oriented to increase the overall agility and maintainability of applications.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

What Are VNF and CNF?<\/strong><\/p>\n

When it comes to network and virtualization, we often juggle a handful of acronyms –some of them anagrams of each other: NFV, VNF, CNF, etc. It is worth, at this point, taking a minute to restate some of these definitions as well.<\/p>\n

A nice summary of NFV is provided in\u00a0this blog<\/a>\u00a0post, which states: \u201cNetwork Function Virtualization is the virtualization of network functions.\u00a0<\/em>Virtualize\u00a0means to abstract from the physical.\u00a0 Network Function often refers to Layer 4 to Layer 7 functions such as firewall, load balancer, DNS or IDS\/IPS.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

On the other hand, a similar definition appears in this\u00a0other post<\/a>\u00a0about SDN and NVF:<\/p>\n

\u201cNFV is the application of software defined appliances to the network.\u00a0 These appliances include devices such as edge authentication, firewalls, load balancers, and some routing functions\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

The first implementation of Network Function Virtualization was called \u201cVirtual Network Functions\u201d and consisted of porting the then-existing physical appliances into virtual machines running in VMware, Openstack clouds, or perhaps on some of the public clouds. Today, thanks to the introduction of containers, the same functions can be re-implemented by moving the application part of it from virtual machines to containers. Those functions are then called\u00a0 \u201cCloud-native Network Functions\u201d or CNF.<\/p>\n

For instance, CoreDNS, which is a DNS server, is in fact one of these CNFs. The CoreDNS container image is available at\u00a0https:\/\/hub.docker.com\/r\/coredns\/coredns<\/a>.<\/p>\n

CNCF and\u00a0ONF\u2019<\/a>s\u00a0 New Project<\/strong><\/p>\n

The new CNF TestBed project proposes to prove\u00a0that concerns about networking performance<\/a>\u00a0should not prevent you from moving your network function from a VM to a container. It actually offers the tools for any networking company to compare the performance of the same function as a VNF or as a CNF. The change will not affect the overall networking performance. In fact, the lightness of container technology allows switching user context more quickly than with VM Hypervisors. With the help of\u00a0memif<\/a>\u00a0–a new technology of virtual interfaces developed at the frontier between physical and virtual– the delivery of IP packets is becoming more efficient for containers than for VMs.<\/p>\n

Another amazing early result is that the delay of deployment goes from 3.30 minutes for a VNF to less than 30 seconds for the corresponding CNF.<\/p>\n

\"VNF<\/p>\n

Figure – The CNF Testbed project\u2019s preliminary results on throughput of packets processed are clearly in favor of the CNF<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

You can now confidently take advantage of all the benefits of containerization and orchestration by Kubernetes, which among others include:<\/p>\n