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Depending on the scope of a network issue, the MSO may delegate, or a Controller may assume, some of the activities identified above. Although the primary orchestrator is called “Master Service Orchestrator (MSO), its job is to manage orchestration at the top level and to facilitate the orchestration that takes place within the underlying controllers and marshal data between the Controllers such that they have the “process steps” and all the “ingredients” to complete the execution of their respective recipes. For new services, this may involve determination of service placement and identification of existing controllers that meet the Service Request parameters and have the required capacity. If existing controllers (Infrastructure, Network or Application) do not exist or do not have capacity, the MSO will obtain a recipe for instantiation of a new Controller under which the requested Service can be placed.
ASDC is the module of ECOMP where orchestration process flows are defined. These process flows will start with a template that may include common functions such as homing determination, selection of Infrastructure, Network and Application Controllers, consultation of policies and interrogation of A&AI to obtain necessary information to guide the process flows. The MSO does not provide any process-based functionality without a recipe for the requested activity regardless of whether that request is a Customer Order or a Service adjustment/ configuration update to an existing service.
MSO will interrogate A&AI to obtain information regarding existing Network and Application Controllers to support a Service Request. A&AI will provide the addresses of candidate Controllers that are able to support the Service Request. The MSO may then interrogate the Controller to validate its continued available capacity. The MSO and the Controllers report reference information back to A&AI upon completion of a Service request to be used in subsequent operations.
8.1 Application, Network and Infrastructure Controller Orchestration
As previously stated, orchestration is performed throughout the D2 Architecture by various components, primarily the MSO and the Application, Network and Infrastructure controllers. Each will perform orchestration for: x Service
- Service Delivery or Changes to existing Service
- Service Scaling, Optimization, or Migration
- Controller Instantiation
- Capacity Management
Regardless of the focus of the orchestration, all recipes will include the need to update A&AI with configuration information, identifiers and IP Addresses.
Infrastructure Controller Orchestration
Like the MSO, Controllers will obtain their orchestration process and payload (templates/ models) from Service Design & Creation (ASDC). For Service instantiation, the MSO maintains overall end-to-end responsibility for ensuring that a request is completed. As part of that responsibility, the MSO
will select the appropriate controllers (Infrastructure, Network, and Application) to carry out the request. Because a Service Request is often comprised of one or more Resources, the MSO will request the appropriate Controllers to obtain the recipe for the instantiation of a Resource within the scope of the requested Controller. After service placement is determined, the MSO may request the creation of a Virtual Machine (VM) at one or more locations depending on the breadth of the service being instantiated and whether an existing instance of the requested service can be used. If new VM resources are required, the MSO will place the request to the Infrastructure Controller for the specific AIC location. Upon receipt of the request, the Infrastructure Controller may obtain its Resource Recipe from ASDC. The Infrastructure Controller will then begin orchestrating the request. For Infrastructure Controllers, this typically involves execution of OpenStack requests for the creation of virtual machines and for the loading of the Virtual Function (VF) software into the new VM container. The Resource recipe will define VM sizing, including compute, storage and memory. If the Resource Level Recipe requires multiple VMs, the MSO will repeat the process, requesting each Infrastructure Controller to spin up one or more VMs and load the appropriate VFs, again driven by the Resource Recipe of the Infrastructure Controller. When the Infrastructure Controller completes the request, it will pass the virtual resource identifier and access (IP) information back to the MSO to provide to the Network and Application controllers. Along the entire process, the MSO may write identifier information to A&AI for inventory tracking.
Network Controller Orchestration
Network Controllers are constructed and operate in much the same manner as Application and Infrastructure Controllers. New Service requests will be associated with an overall recipe for instantiation of that Service. The MSO will obtain compatible Network Controller information from A&AI and will in turn request LAN or WAN connectivity and configuration to be performed. This may be done by requesting the Network Controller to obtain its resource recipe from ASDC. It is the responsibility of the MSO to request (virtual) network connectivity between the components and to ensure that the selected Network Controller successfully completes the Network configuration workflow. A Service may have LAN, WAN and Access requirements, each ofwhich will be included in the recipe and configured to meet the instance specific customer or service requirements at each level. Physical Access might need to be provisioned in the legacy provisioning systems prior to requesting the MSO to instantiate the service.
Application Control Orchestration
Application Controllers will also be requested by the MSO to obtain the Application Specific component of the Service Recipe from ASDC and execute the orchestration workflow. The MSO continues to be responsible for ensuring that the Application Controller successfully completes its Resource configuration as defined by the recipe. As with Infrastructure and Network Controllers, all workflows, whether focused on Instantiation, configuration or scaling, will be obtained or originate from ASDC. In addition, workflows also will report their actions to A&AI as well as to MSO.
Note that not all changes in network or service behavior are the result of orchestration. For example, application Virtual Functions can change network behavior by changing rules or policies associated with Controller activities. These policy changes can dynamically enable service behavior changes.