Designing VNF Packages

To design a VNF package, you need to perform the following:

Creating Basic VNF Information

You can click through each tab on this page to specify basic VNF information, flavor parameters, standard functions, custom functions, and supported function chains for the VNF package.

Procedure

1. Click Home > Requests. You see the Requests page and can view the number of open requests that you created to design a VNF package.
2. Select Begin from the appropriate open VNF request wizard.

   You are directed to the Configure page. It contains three tabs—Enter Basic Information, Select Functions, and Design Function Chains. You can click through the tabs to specify basic VNF information, flavor parameters, standard functions, custom functions, and supported function chains that are required for the VNF package.

3. Complete the configuration according to the guidelines provided in Table 12.

   Table 12: Fields on the VNF Information Page

   Field	Description
   VNFD Name	Displays the VNF Package request name that you provided. A VNFD is a deployment template that describes the deployment and operational behavior of the VNF. Some of the VNFs are listed below: Juniper Networks vSRX—Supports both centralized and distributed deployments. LxCIPtable—A free, third-party VNF based on Linux IP tables; supports only centralized deployments. CSR-1000V—Cisco Cloud Services Router 1000V Series; supports only for centralized deployments. HAProxy—An open source, reliable solution that offers high availability and proxy service for TCP applications.
   VNF Package Capability Version	Displays the VNF package capability version. Example: 1.1
   VNF Manager	Select the VNF configuration manager. A VNF manager represents plug-in information, which includes plug-in type and name and is extracted from an existing VNF. The VNF manager manages the life cycle management of VNFs including third-party VNFs. Some of the VNF managers are listed below: Viptables viptables_v2 generic_v2 JunosSpace riverbed_v2 Space_14_2 Space_DMS_CMS_2_0
   Deployment Type	Select the deployment type. uCPE only—Select this option for a distributed deployment. vCPE only—Select this option for a centralized deployment.
   Basic Configuration	Select the basic configuration template. A basic configuration template ensures correct startup and ongoing manageability, management IP address, SNMP, and system logs and is created by using the Configuration Designer. Example: vSRX Space firewall config
   BootStrap Configuration	Select the bootstrap configuration as a reference to the configuration template for the bootstrap configuration to be used when the VNF is spawned. Bootstrap configuration template is created using the Configuration Designer. Example: default-domain
   Network Configuration	Select the network configuration as a reference to the configuration template for the networking configuration to be staged on the VNF. Network configuration template is created using the Configuration Designer. Example: default-domain
   OAM Ports	Enter one or more OAM port names for the distributed deployment VNF package.
   VNF Capability	Select one or more capabilities supported for the software release of the VNF. SRIOV-DATA—Supports SRIOV and its data interfaces SRIOV-MGMT—Supports SRIOV and its management interfaces CDROM-Bootstrapping—Supports bootstrap configuration through CDROM ISO UserData-Bootstrapping—Supports bootstrap configuration using CloudInit MGMT-VLAN-Tagged-Traffic—Supports VLAN tagged traffic and its management interfaces DATA-VLAN-Tagged-Traffic—Supports VLAN tagged traffic and its data interfaces Transparent-mode—Supports insertion in transparent mode L3-mode—Supports Layer 3 mode Direct-OAM-Reachability—Enables service chaining of a third-party VNF. This option is supported only for centralized deployments(vCPE-Only).
   Connection Points	Specify the connection points for the VNF package. You can also specify whether to enable or disable the TCP offloads for the VNF connection points. This option is supported only for distributed deployments(uCPE-Only). internal—For internal management network. oob—For out-of-band (OOB) management network. mgmt-interface—For Operation, Administration, and Maintenance (OAM) network. left-interface—For incoming traffic to the VNF. right-interface—For outgoing traffic from the VNF. Note: You can configure only left interface and right interface for centralized deployment model. You can re-order the connection points as per the port index(0-4).
   Package Flavors	Click Add icon. The New Flavor Parameters window appears. Add the flavor parameters to the VNF package.

Adding Flavor Parameters

You can create a package flavor (for example, Gold, Silver, or Bronze) and assign the flavor to the VNF. Flavor parameters are computational properties of virtual deployable units (VDUs) and each package flavor supports only one virtual deployable unit (VDU). You can specify different resources for each VDU such as number of CPUs, allocated memory size, and allocated disk size. You can also specify a VNF image for VDU for vCPE devices and specify the bootstrap script for uCPE devices.

Procedure

1. From the Package Flavors field on the Basic VNF Information page, click Add.

   The New Flavor Parameters wizard appears.

2. Complete the configuration according to the guidelines provided in Table 13.
3. Click Save. If you want to discard your changes, click Cancel instead.

   A graphical representation of the wizard is displayed and shows the VNF flavor name and the required virtual resources.

4. Click the edit icon at the top of the wizard to modify the flavor parameters. If you want to close the wizard, click the X icon.
5. Click Next.

   The Select Functions page appears with the standard and custom functions.

   Table 13: New Flavor Parameters

   Field	Description
   Flavor Name	Specify the name of the package flavor for the VNF. Example: Gold, Silver, or Bronze
   Image Name	Select the VNF image file. Click Upload Image to upload VNF images for the centralized deployment through Administration Portal. See Uploading a Device Image. Example: csr1000v-img
   CPU	Specify the number of virtual CPUs required for the VNF using a numeric value without a fractional component. Example: 4 CPU cores
   Memory	Specify the virtual memory size required for the VNF in megabytes (MB) using a numeric value without a fractional component. Example: 4096 MB
   Disk	Specify the virtual disk capacity required for the VNF in gigabytes (GB) using a numeric value without a fractional component. Example: 128 GB
   Bootstrap Script	Bootstrap script is supported only for the uCPE deployment. You can add a bootstrap script to support a third-party VNF for the uCPE devices. Click Add. The Edit Bootstrap Script wizard appears.
   Edit Bootstrap Script	Edit and save the script. If you want to discard your changes, click Cancel instead.
   Script Type	Select the supported bootstrap script for the third-party VNF. Supported bootstrap script types are: bash sh python perl The default script type is bash.

Adding Standard and Custom Functions

Procedure

1. On the Select Functions page, from the Standard Functions wizard, select the function category from the Category drop-down list. To select all function categories, click All.

   • There are four function categories: Security, Switching, Networking, and Routing.

   • When you select a function category, a list of network functions that belong to the function category is displayed in the wizard. For example, NAT, Firewall, Anitspam, and Antivirus are displayed when you select Security.

2. Select the network function that you want to add to the VNF package individually. If you want to select all network functions, click Select All.
3. Click Add Custom Function to add a custom function if the predefined category does not have the network function the user wants to use.

   The Edit Custom Function wizard appears.

   1. Specify the name of the custom function.

   2. Select the function category.

   3. Click Save. If you want to discard your changes, click Cancel instead.

4. Click Next.

   The Design Function Chains page appears.

Designing a Supported Function Chain

Procedure

1. On the Design Function Chains page, a list of standard and custom functions are displayed in the Function Palette wizard at the bottom of the page.
2. Drag any standard or custom function from the Function Palette wizard at the bottom of the page and drop it on the Supported Function Chains workspace at the top of the page in the order that they should appear. If you drop two or more functions to the workspace, the functions will automatically connect with a connection arrow to form a service chain.
3. Click the edit icon on the network function to add a configuration template for the network function.

   The Config Template wizard appears.

4. From the Template Name drop-down list, select the network configuration template to be staged on the VNF. Some configuration templates are listed as follows:

   • IPTable NAT config —Configuration template designed for NAT.

   • IPTable Firewall config —Configuration template designed for firewall.

   • FireFly UTM config—Configuration template designed for firefly UTM.

5. Click Save. If you want to discard your changes, click Cancel instead.
6. Using the guidelines in Table 14, specify assurance parameters for the VNF on the left panel of the page. Assurance parameters are used to provide SLA performance and scale indicators from the data sheet for the VNF. Each VNF flavor can achieve the SLA performance and scale indicators. When you design a network service in Network Service Designer, these values are used to determine how well your design meets your target performance for the network service.
7. Click Next.

   The service chain is created and displayed in the same page. For example, Antispam-UTM-NAT-Antivirus.

8. If you use more than one network function in the VNF package, click Service Chain to create the next combination of services.
9. Repeat steps 4 through 6 to create the service chain.
10. Repeat steps 6 through 9 until you have covered all possible combinations of the network functions including each function on its own.
11. Click Next.

    The Review VNF Package page appears.

    Table 14: Assurance Parameters of the Network Function

    Field	Description
    Service Mode	Select the mode of network service that can be configured for the VNF. Transparent—Used for services that do not modify the packet. Also known as bump-in-the-wire or Layer 2 mode. Example: Firewall, IDP, and so on. In-Network—Provides a gateway service where packets are routed between the service instance interfaces. Example: NAT, Layer 3 firewall, load balancer, HTTP proxy, and so on. In-Network-NaT—Similar to in-network mode, but return traffic does not need to be routed to the source network. In-network-nat mode is particularly useful for NAT service. The default service mode is In-Network.
    Bandwidth	Specify the data rate for the virtualized network function in megabytes per second (Mbps) or gigabytes per second (Gbps). Example: 185
    Latency	Specify the time a packet takes to traverse the virtualized network function in milliseconds (ms). Example: 5.8
    Sessions	Specify the maximum number of sessions concurrently supported for the VNF. Example: 25,000
    License cost	Specify the license cost for the virtualized network function in USD.

Viewing the Summary of VNF Packages

Procedure

1. On the Review VNF package page, you can view the VNF basic information, number of standard and custom network functions available, number of standard and custom network functions selected, and the number of service chains created for the VNF package.
2. Click the edit icon on top corner of each wizard to edit the individual fields of VNF basic information, functions, and service chains.
3. Click Done.

   A success message is displayed.

   The VNF package is added in the Designs page and the status of the package changes to Validated.

Related Documentation

• Resource Designer Overview

• Creating Requests for VNF Packages

• Adding VNF Managers

• Publishing VNF Packages