Re: Follow up to "has virtualization become obsolete in 5G"?

2021-01-16 Thread Nick Hilliard

Etienne-Victor Depasquale wrote on 16/01/2021 11:34:
The term NFV is a bit of a stretch for what is really 
network-function-containerization.


Like ~ everything else relating to computers, network management and 
service provisioning functionality boils down to executing CPU 
instructions on physical devices with service access handles and 
protocols available over a management communications layer. There are 
plenty of choice about what particular abstraction layer you might want 
to sit between between the storage image and the CPU.  Containers have 
been around for years, and have some advantages over hypervisor-based 
virtual machines, in relation to cost and deployment efficiency.  Like 
everything else, there's a tradeoff, and the suitability of containers 
to the function at hand depends on what you're trying to achieve.


The reaction of most technical people to deployment of NFV or 
declaration of NFV's death is going to be more along the lines of 
wondering why telco proponents were so late to the devops / 
containerisation game to start with, and what on earth did they think 
was so innovative about it that it deserved yet another marketing label.


Nick


Re: Follow up to "has virtualization become obsolete in 5G"?

2021-01-16 Thread Etienne-Victor Depasquale
>
> I'm also unsure where it mentions that virtualization is now obsolete.
>
"Obsolete" was my term.
The substance of my question last year was my surprise in observing
what appeared to be a trend that virtualization technologies (KVM, Xen,
Hyper-V ...)
are no longer the first choice for implementation of network functions.

Since then, every opportunity I've had to listen to operators, operators'
groups, vendors and analysts
has reaffirmed the preference of containerization technologies for
implementation of network functions (NFs).

What struck me in particular in the link I've shared is the extract I
quoted:
"Once the darling of the telecoms industry, NFV has had a rough ride in
recent years and has even lead some industry observers to proclaim that NFV
is dead."

NFV solutions are moving to VM based deployments as a stop-gap and for the
> future, towards micro-services built in containers.

Agreed ... except that some "industry observers" may link NFV exclusively
to virtualization technologies. I don't.
However, in their favour, I'd dare say that it's not technically sound to
blur the technical differences
between NFs implemented in VMs and NFs implemented in containers.
The term NFV is a bit of a stretch for what is really
network-function-containerization.

Cheers,

Etienne

On Sat, Jan 16, 2021 at 1:57 AM Laurent Dumont 
wrote:

> The amount of buzzwords in that page is quite incredible.
>
> I'm also unsure where it mentions that virtualization is now obsolete. NFV
> solutions are moving to VM based deployments as a stop-gap and for the
> future, towards micro-services built in containers.
>
> On Fri, Jan 15, 2021 at 6:38 AM Etienne-Victor Depasquale 
> wrote:
>
>> Hello folks,
>>
>> Last year, I posted to this list and asked "has virtualization become
>> obsolete in 5G"?
>>
>> A similar opinion seems to be gaining ground
>> 
>> .:
>>
>> "Once the darling of the telecoms industry, NFV has had a rough ride in
>> recent years and has even lead some industry observers to proclaim that NFV
>> is dead."
>>
>> Cheers,
>>
>> Etienne
>>
>> --
>> Ing. Etienne-Victor Depasquale
>> Assistant Lecturer
>> Department of Communications & Computer Engineering
>> Faculty of Information & Communication Technology
>> University of Malta
>> Web. https://www.um.edu.mt/profile/etiennedepasquale
>>
>

-- 
Ing. Etienne-Victor Depasquale
Assistant Lecturer
Department of Communications & Computer Engineering
Faculty of Information & Communication Technology
University of Malta
Web. https://www.um.edu.mt/profile/etiennedepasquale


Re: Follow up to "has virtualization become obsolete in 5G"?

2021-01-15 Thread Laurent Dumont
The amount of buzzwords in that page is quite incredible.

I'm also unsure where it mentions that virtualization is now obsolete. NFV
solutions are moving to VM based deployments as a stop-gap and for the
future, towards micro-services built in containers.

On Fri, Jan 15, 2021 at 6:38 AM Etienne-Victor Depasquale 
wrote:

> Hello folks,
>
> Last year, I posted to this list and asked "has virtualization become
> obsolete in 5G"?
>
> A similar opinion seems to be gaining ground
> 
> .:
>
> "Once the darling of the telecoms industry, NFV has had a rough ride in
> recent years and has even lead some industry observers to proclaim that NFV
> is dead."
>
> Cheers,
>
> Etienne
>
> --
> Ing. Etienne-Victor Depasquale
> Assistant Lecturer
> Department of Communications & Computer Engineering
> Faculty of Information & Communication Technology
> University of Malta
> Web. https://www.um.edu.mt/profile/etiennedepasquale
>