1. Michael Kloberdans CableLabs
Disposable Containers at the Edge
Michael Kloberdans
CableLabs

2. Where exactly is “The Edge”
Distributed VNFs will eventually move into the Home Gateway

3. Where is your Edge?
SDN/NFV discussions have mainly focused at the Main or Regional Data Center
Recently, the “Edge” represents the ISP premise location closest to the home, user, consumer, device, etc.
Because of scale, control and cost savings, SDN/NFV have focused in the Data Center. Here, resources are available to scale in and out as well as up and down. Most of the research to date focuses on the data center. A recent move to the “edge” of the ISP’s network has begun. Edge in this context means the egress point from the ISP toward the customer, but still in the ISP premise. This edge is often called “Distributed VNFs”. VNFs are distributed from a central point to many “edge” points. One of the reasons this edge is important is netwrok performance – specifically latency. Low latency applications require treatment near the home, such as gaming, voice and other real-time or near real-time applications.
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4. The ISP Data Center
Data Centers consist of a myriad of servers that are geographically close.
This facilitates control by the ISP
Imagine the data center of your dreams – something like this Google data center. Notice the appeal of glowing blue racks efficiently performing their functions. No overhead lighting is needed. No people ‘seem’ to be needed. This is a myth, but the point is that thousands of servers are co-located at a special area called the Data Center. These servers can spin up (and down) VNFs as needed to fit the elastic needs of the day. Servers themselves can be brought up (or down) as further capacity is needed. Control is paramount. The ISP can control resources as needed at one geographical point.
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5. The Enterprise Data Center
Enterprises also use data centers, but a smaller footprint
Virtualization has spread to enterprises. Here, the Data Centers are smaller, but the same basic concepts apply; hundreds of servers can be controlled to meet the elastic demands of the day, and all of those servers are co-located at one location. It is far easier to control hundreds of units in one location than in hundreds of locations.
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6. Home – the “Anti” Data Center
Orchestration software was never meant to scale from thousands of servers to millions of homes
If we think about moving VNFs to the home, we fundamentally break the model of “one location’. The model is the exact opposite of the Data Center, it is the “Anti-Data Center”. The biggest penalty to this model is the burden of orchestration. Whereas we had thousands of servers in a Data Center with tens or hundreds of VNFs each, we now potentially have millions of separate locations to manage. China mobile has, potentially, hundreds of millions of locations to manage. In the home, you cannot spin up any new resources because there is only one edge box in the home – the home gateway. Therefore, millions of separate locations with few VNFs will need to be tracked, managed and orchestrated. No software to date can handle this new burden.
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7. But VNFs can reside in any cloud – even the home!
ISP Cloud
Home Cloud
VNFs were created to divorce functionality baked into proprietary firmware and place that functionality in small interoperable units called VNFs. These VNFs are now free to reside in a cloud – any cloud, including the home gateway. Note that the drawing shows a cloud at both the ISP location as well as the home. If user-Linux space is provided on the Home Gateway, VNFs can reside there. But why would we want VNFs to reside on the Home Gateway?
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8. VNFs – Why in the home? Why in the home? - WAN Fault - Performance
- Reduce Traffic
While it may not be appropriate for every VNF to reside on the Home Gateway, it may make sense to place some VNFs there. Examples could include routing. If a home has areas separated by VLANs, such as Wireless Guest Access, main home access, a Kid’s area and a basement office, routing is needed for these VLAN’s devices to communicate, especially (for example) if there is only printer at that house. If the WAN link goes down, you can no longer move packets between VLANs. Therefore, the business office may not be able to print on the main family printer while that WAN link is down.
Performance is another driver. A home security system may not be able to display a camera’s video on the home television if they are on separate VLANs. Some may also argue that inappropriate traffic should be dropped at the Home Gateway instead of traveling to the ISP, consume resources at the ISP only to be dropped by the ISP.
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9. Introduction to Profiles
A new paradigm

10. Home – the “Anti” Data Center
Orchestration software will change from data center orchestrators to ‘profiles’ or ‘templates’
These standard profiles can remove the need for SFC (Service Function Chaining) because the home has simpler needs.
As discussed earlier, distributed VNFs can potentially scale to a myriad of locations not envisioned or supported by current Orchestrating software. A different method is needed to manage these home locations. Templates (profiles) are one suggestion as a solution. I believe only a small subset of VNF functionality will be required on the home gateway; Parental control and Firewall might be two of the most popular VNFs. A standard profile with these two VNFs could be pre-arranged, sent upon request from a user at a portal and installed at the home gateway with no concept of service chaining. This would be a pre-packaged unit.
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11. Home Profiles Imagine a home profile with two VNFs: FW-1 FW-2 FW-3
PC-1
PC-2
PC-3
PC-4
PC-5
PC-6
Template #17
FW-4
PC-2
Consider a portal that host multiple Firewall land Parental Control VNFs from multiple vendors. Each could have a separate cost, and the user can select the UI or features they like best – just like the app-enabled world of smart phones. In this example, the user selected Firewall #4 and Parental Control #2, which was pre-planned as template #17. Therefore, template #17 is sent to the home gateway and installed such that the firewall is always ISP facing and the Parental Control is always facing the home LAN. No service chaining is needed because the needs at the home are meager.
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12. Why is the home of such interest?
Competition to control the home is just beginning to appear.
Google’s OnHub ( 4GB storage )
Amazon’s Alexa ( Records your commands )
Google’s NEST ( Tunnels back to Google )
Apple’s Home Design Kit ( IoT Control )
Smart Phone Apps ( Acts as a TV Remote)
VNFs at the home are inevitable as vendor and ISP interest in the home increases. We’ve already seen several companies introduce home products that do more than host a function for the users. The Smart Thermostat from NEST, as an example, forms an IPv6 tunnel using an IPv6 ULA address. This tunnel reports information back to Google. Similarly, other products seek to better understand customer’s habits to better market products and solutions to them. Knowing a customer’s habits is far more accurate than soliciting surveys. Google’s OnHub features 4-GB of storage, but no reason has been stated yet. It would be a simple task to devote some of that storage for VNFs, although I don’t know that this is planned. Each of the companies listed have an interest in knowing habits, or patterns from the users in the home, or they are trying to become a central point of communications for IoT and other communication needs.
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13. The home will be the focus of many ISPs
Superior information with customer actions
Incredibly rich user data on habits, not just opinions
Amazingly complete meta data from all home devices
Not just usage:
Time-based usage
Location-based usage
Features-based usage
Some of the interest of harvesting data from the home include deeper information based on actual usage instead of mere opinions on a survey. Knowing where data is sought by customers and gathering the meta data is important in understanding needs and desires of that location, and possibly specific users. It’s more than just usage, it is usage based on time of day/week/month and year. It includes wired and wireless usage and knowing which features are used and how they are used. This is nothing short of a revolution in market statistics.
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14. A Case for Disposable VNFs
Mission Impossible

15. VNFs can reside in any cloud – even the home!
Why in the home?
- WAN Fault
- Performance
- Reduce Traffic
- Link Metrics
You’ve seen this slide before, but I’ve introduced a new reason for a VNF to reside in the home. With the FCC reporting speed and packet loss from Telcos and Cable Operators every year, and with the new demands of Title-II, the access link needs to be measured. Building a NID into the home gateway can be done, but adds to the costs and introduces an amount of inflexibility. Software, such as is found in Sam Knows to measure this link and beyond is perfectly suited as a VNF. This testing VNF could be installed when needed, but removed afterwards to free up memory and other resources on the Home Gateway.
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16. A case for “Disposable Containers”
An ISP may want to measure their link to the home
Latency values
Jitter values
Packet loss values
QoE voice metrics
Echo
Background noise
Beyond Title-II and the FCC MBA reports, there are other reasons an ISP may want to measure their access links. Internal testing may be needed to validate a new component in the access network. VNFs can measure both the objective elements of delay, jitter and packet loss and the subjective elements such as a VoIP call to sense tinny voice, echo, underwater voice, etc. VNFs lead to adding QoE metrics very easily compared to a NID.
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17. A case for “Disposable VNFs”
Having a “NID” permanently installed is needless, consumes resources and adds to the cost of the home gateway
Sending VNFs to the Home Gateway could be the answer
VNFs would “self destruct” when an appropriate trigger event occurs
This relieves the orchestrator from managing and removing potentially millions of distributed VNFs
A disposable VNF requires no interaction by MANO components once it is installed on a home gateway or other platform. Disposable VNFs are designed to fill a role where a transient need happens. The VNFs, being ‘Ultra Distributed’ relive the Orchestrator and other MANO components from the burden of tracking, managing the life cycle and removal. Like Instagram or the Mission Impossible concept, these disposable VNFs will “Self Destruct” after an event trigger occurs.
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18. A case for “Disposable Containers”
Event triggers could include:
Time Limit, such as a TTL counter that counts down seconds
Usage Limit counts down for every external request is received
Usage Limit counts down each time an internal VNF action happens
Examples of event triggers include the following listed on this slide, but could also include other triggers.
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19. Summary
VNFs in the home
Profiles for the home
Disposable VNFs

20. Summary to this Introduction of Concepts
We’ve seen that the edge is moving to the home
There is keen interest with user habits in the home
Current Orchestrators cannot scale to the needs of a fully distributed home edge (anti-data center)
Some VNFs are appropriate to reside on the home gateway
There is a need for transient VNFs to self-destruct
Several concepts are included in this presentation; the edge is moving further away from the ISPs, interest is growing in harvesting the habits inside the home, Orchestrators cannot keep pace with VNFs on the home gateway and self-disposing VNFs. We can readily see how these concepts integrate and fuel each other. These concepts are a glimpse into the future, as promised by this panel.
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