xNF License Management Support

Introduction

ONAP needs to support various types of xNF commercial licensing models: simpler, more complex, vendor specific and operator specific models. To support these, two optional solutions exist for ONAP.

Alternative Solution 1: ONAP Native License Management

ONAP includes a built-in xNF license management solution. For a description of this solution, please refer to the License information model.

Alternative Solution 2: License Management Solution External to ONAP

In this solution, the ONAP native license management solution is not used. None of the ONAP components participates in any of the xNF license management use cases, but the only actors are the xNF and the License Service external to ONAP. The external License Service (e.g. vendor specific solution) will vary with the installed network elements of a vendor and service provider. For more information see the Licensing Management Use Case page.

The following sequence diagrams describe the interactions at VNF instantiation and PNF Plug and Play.

Service and HEAT-based VNF instantiation and the License Management Interactions

Service and SOL003-based VNF instantiation and the License Management Interactions

PNF Plug and Play and the License Management Interactions

The below sequence diagram shows license management interactions as part of a simplified 5G PNF PnP flow.