China Unicom and Huawei Speed Up SDN Commercialization:World's First Commercial SDN IPRAN Deployment
Source: cn-c114.net View: 233 Date: 2014-07-09

In the era of LTE, dense site deployment multiplies bearer network NEs, and network scales increase exponentially. How to effectively operate LTE networks, control skyrocketing O&M costs, speed up response to service innovation, meet increasing customer service requirements, and improve network efficiency to meet surging bandwidth requirements is posing a severe challenge to carriers. The software-defined networking (SDN) technology can be used to cope with these challenges.

The Sichuan Branch of China United Network Communications Group Co., Ltd. (Sichuan Unicom for short) and Huawei have jointly launched the world’s first commercial SDN-based IP radio access network (SDN IPRAN) in Chengdu, provincial capital of Sichuan province in Southwest China. This is the first time SDN technology has been applied to an IPRAN, and will be effective in promoting SDN commercialization.

Liao Jianwen, deputy general manager of Sichuan Unicom pointed out during the interview with C114 that SDN separates the control plane the forwarding plane, reducing the dependence of new service provisioning on forwarding devices. This significantly speeds up service innovation and shortens LTE service time to market (TTM). The SDN IPRAN deployment is a practice of the "lead mobile broadband" and "3G/4G integration" strategies of China Unicom. The strategies fully demonstrate the network value and accelerate quality network construction.

SDN optimizes the traditional IP network architecture. The layered and open architecture of SDN fully supports service innovation, introduces horizontal integration, and promotes competition in the industry, according to Zha Jun, president of Huawei’s fixed network product line.

Implementation of the World’s First Commercial SDN IPRAN

To cope with the challenges of the LTE era, Sichuan Unicom presented a transformation strategy of "one core and four centers" in 2013. One core represents big data, and the four centers are High Service, High operation and maintenance (O&M), High Billing, and Big Traffic. The High O&M center adopts a platform-based strategy to reduce O&M costs, improve customer experience, and satisfy customer demands. In addition, the High O&M center puts forward a new O&M working mechanism which is characterized by centralized monitoring, O&M, and management. The new mechanism places a higher requirement on the O&M management and service quality.

Overall network development trends include core networks as platforms, access devices as modules, and smart mobile terminals. According to Liao Jianwen, China Unicom keeps a close eye on cutting-edge technologies, and SDN is one of them and meets the requirements that LTE places on the bearer network. Therefore, Sichuan Unicom closely cooperates with Huawei that has made much progress in the SDN field, striving to make technological breakthroughs in the SDN field on IPRANs.

After discussions with Huawei, Sichuan Unicom officially launched the SDN IPRAN project in 2013. In January 2014, the two parties formulated a specific plan for the project and embarked on the implementation and verification process. In May, a commercial pilot of the SDN was deployed in Chengdu, and Sichuan Unicom plans to gradually promote SDN IPRAN throughout Sichuan province.

Liao Jianwen said that the introduction of SDN is beneficial in three major ways: first, the control and management planes converge at the aggregation layer to implement centralized control, which simplifies network maintenance and improves efficiency; second, network service quality is visible, assessable, and predictable, implementing a maintenance transformation away network orientation toward service and user experience orientation; last but not least, the leading architecture of SDN separates the control plane the forwarding plane, which enables carriers to fully utilize resources, open network programmability, and make continuous service innovation. This allows Sichuan Unicom to better serve users, implement their "4G/3G integration" strategy, and take the lead in both the LTE era and in future competition.

According to Liao Jianwen, SDN requires that carriers not only engage in O&M but also focus on development and promotion of new services and new applications in the future.

"SDN evolution will by no means reinvent the wheel. During the SDN IPRAN deployment of Sichuan Unicom, the routers on the forwarding plane do not need to be replaced, but only overlaid on the convergence layer and integrated with the network controller and traffic analyzer. Smooth evolution of the entire network, not only prevents traditional services being affected, but also benefits carriers by optimizing architecture. This is the so-called "small change, big advantage", said Zha Jun.

Joint Innovation speeding up SDN commercialization

The information and communications technology (ICT) industry has reached a consensus that SDN, as a new network architecture, will promote an enormous leap in global IP technology application, and its usage scenarios are expected to expand. Data released by Informa for 2013 shows that nearly 93% of carriers would gradually deploy the SDN network in the coming five years. According to a survey of carriers conducted by Infonetics, the carriers that plan to deploy SDN account for 97% of the total carriers, and the carriers that plan to deploy Network Functions Virtualization (NFV) total 97%.

The successful implementation of Sichuan Unicom SDN IPRAN is the world’s first commercial deployment of the SDN technology in the field of IPRAN, and serves as another milestone in global SDN commercial deployment following Beijing Telecom’s successful IDC commercial deployment on carrier networks. It will contribute to the comprehensive SDN commercialization in the telecommunications industry and demonstrate China’s innovative capability and leading technological strength in the SDN field.

"Although SDN standards are not yet mature, carriers cannot just sit by passively, and instead must take the initiative in promoting the development of standardization and commercialization to seize the high ground," Liao Jianwen told C114.

In the process of moving concept to commercialization, any technology requires constant conceptual optimization and enrichment and is innovated based on scenarios and customer demands, and standard definition accounts for only a small part. According to Zha Jun, which functions should the controller that is introduced to the SDN architecture includes in addition to open network programmability, how to solve the chronic problems of traditional networks, how to be compatible with existing networks for smooth migration remain to be answered and verified in practice. Against this background, joint innovation by a carrier and a device manufacturer provides a practical platform. He said that the first commercial deployment in the SDN field can enrich carrier’s practical experience, helping the carrier to take the lead for at least one year.

Highlights of the Sichuan Unicom SDN IPRAN

In the commercial deployment process of Sichuan Unicom SDN IPRAN, the effects of joint innovation have already begun to demonstrate themselves. After the SDN IPRAN was deployed, the network planning workload dropped significantly compared with that of traditional IPRANs, and the service deployment and maintenance efficiency increased dramatically, achieving an overall efficiency increase of 60%. SDN IPRAN is beneficial in the following aspects which are valued by Sichuan Unicom:

1. Simplifying site deployment

With SDN IPRAN, access devices implement plug-and-play, protocols can be automatically deployed, services can be automatically delivered, and nodes can be added to a ring automatically; carriers do not need to modify the existing network configurations, and the number of commands required during service provisioning is reduced 100 to 10. Consequently, SDN IPRAN greatly reduces site deployment workload and technical requirements of the maintenance personnel.

2. Improving O&M efficiency

SDN IPRAN shifts the control plane of radio network controllers (ATN devices) on the access layer to aggregation layer routers (CX600s) and virtualizes ATN devices as remote boards and subcards of the CX600s for centralized control and management. This flattens and simplifies networks, saves O&M manpower, and improves O&M efficiency. The Sichuan Unicom IPRAN in Chengdu has 1,200 access devices. After SDN was deployed, the number of packet-based devices that require direct operation decreases 1,200 to 14, which minimizes correlative alarms and in turn helps locate the root-cause alarm. Therefore, SDN IPRAN greatly improves the troubleshooting efficiency.

3. Improving user experience

Based on the uTraffic+IP Flow Performance Measurement (IP FPM) solution, SDN IPRAN can monitor service quality in real time, and the precision reaches 10-6, implementing precise and rapid fault location. This makes network performance visible, assessable, and predictable. Service data, such as KPI and SLA, is submitted to the centralized monitoring system and presented in a user-friendly manner. This speeds up response to user requests, implements transparent network service adjustment, and improves network resource utilization and customer service experience.

After SDN is deployed on the IPRAN bearer network on a large scale, the horizontal integration provided by SDN promotes greater competition in the industry and reduces O&M costs of carriers. In addition, the data plane is decoupled the control plane, which reduces the dependence of new service delivery and TTM on forwarding devices on the bearer network and speeds up service innovation and deployment.

More than 35 cooperation projects to mature the industry

As an ICT solution leader and SDN advocate, Huawei proactively participates in and promotes SDN standard development, contributes the most proposals to standard organizations such as ONF, IETF, and ETSI-NFV, and assumes key positions in multiple workgroups, such as the chairman. Technologies aim to meet service needs. In commercial practice, Huawei cooperates with the world’s leading carriers, such as China Unicom, for innovations to better meet requirements of carrier network scenarios. The cooperation promotes service innovation and TTM, improves deployment, O&M, and network transmission efficiency, and enhances user experience, which speeds up the maturity of SDN industrial commercialization.
Zha Jun revealed that Huawei has cooperated with more than 20 leading carriers globally to conduct over 35 joint innovation and commercial deployment projects. These projects include nine data center virtualization and automation projects, seven IP core network traffic optimization projects, four an SDN IPRAN projects, five service Chain Gi-LANprojects, four service POP projects, and six transmission SDN (T-SDN) projects. SDN deployment in this diverse range of application scenarios will usher in an open, dynamic, intelligent era for networks.

In terms of Huawei’s latest developments in the SDN field, Zha Jun revealed that Huawei released the industry’s first carrier-grade control algorithm (Flow Engine), which is embedded in the SDN controller in the Open Networking Summit on March 6, 2014; Huawei released a T-SDN platform and an APP system prototype built on the platform in the Optical Fiber Communication Conference and Exposition (OFC) in the United States in 2014; In addition, Huawei released SDNIPv6, the industry’s first SDN application, in MPLS SDN World Congress, and the SDN IPv6 has been available in GooglePlay and App Store.

In addition, a recent survey conducted by Current Analysis shows that Huawei has been listed as the best SDN and NFV solution provider. More than 100 chief technology officers (CTOs), chief operating officers (COOs), and other executives carriers worldwide were interviewed in the survey, and mainstream SDN and NFV solution providers were covered. 69% interviewees indicated that they would probably adopt Huawei’s SDN solutions; 79% interviewees said that they were considering a purchase or had already purchased Huawei SDN solutions; 67% of the interviewees revealed they were most willing to purchase Huawei NFV solutions; 76% of interviewees indicated that they were considering a purchase or had already purchased Huawei NFV solutions.

 

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