Table of Contents

BUSINESS DRIVERS

This section describes Business Drivers for this Use Case.

Executive Summary - PNF software updates are routine for network upgrades to support new features, improve efficiency or increase capacity on the field, and to eliminate bugs. This use case positions ONAP as a vantage point in orchestrating and managing PNF software upgrades inline with the business and service objectives.   

Business Impact - Deployment and orchestration of new network services over both VNFs and PNFs in a model and software driven way simplifies the network management. As 5G networks will host a large number of PNFs from multiple vendors, streamlining service upgrades that involve PNF software changes through ONAP will reduce the OPEX substantially.  

Business Markets - Carriers both in the mobile and fixed-line space host PNFs at the edge of the network. New 5G deployments as well as legacy 4G systems in the mobile carrier space should be considered as target markets. 

Funding/Financial Impacts - Orchestrating PNF software updates via an ONAP deployment will enable better service planning, faster introduction of new network services over field-deployed PNFs, and reduce the operational costs.

Organization Mgmt, Sales Strategies - Harmonizing PNF and VNF software management in a model and workflow driven manner is essential in 5G systems where PNFs will continue to exist in large numbers and they are expected to have more frequent software upgrades (as they will have more capabilities that can be controlled or upgraded via software). Thus ONAP can be the "go-to" solution if this harmonization can be done successfully.

Current Status of PNF Software Upgrade

PNF in place software upgrade is supported in Casablanca and updated in Dublin

• With the support of an EM​
• Ansible protocol only ​
• Plan to use LCM API with existing SO building blocks
• Impacts on SDNC only (not E2E solution yet)

More details, 5G - PNF Software Update & 5G - PNF SW Upgrade (Casablanca carry-over items)

PNF Software Upgrade Scenarios

There are 4 scenarios are proposed:

1. Using direct Netconf/Yang interface with PNF
2. Enable service level LCM operations
3. Using Ansible protocol with EM
4. Using Netconf/Yang interface with EM

Common Tasks for all scenarios

SO workflow Example to upgrade one PNF instance

SO activities operations:

LCM evolution with API Decision Tree

Development Status

Impacts Summary