This section describes how to design, develop, and submit a Virtual Network Function for use as a Network Resource in the OpenECOMP ONAP environment.

A Virtual Network Function can be developed in a stand-alone development environment without most of the tools – or even API libraries – used or furnished by OpenECOMPONAP. The completed VNF is submitted to the Certification Group (see Mailing Lists) as a collection of executable and text files, and must meet the set of requirements described in the Reference Documents for VNF Providers, below.

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• VNF providers: creators of VNFs (executables and related configuration files)
• Acceptance personnel: those tasked with certifying VNFs (approving them to run in OpenECOMP ONAP environments)

The following readers may wish to refer to this documentation for a deeper understanding of VNFs, however, for operational information, they should read Using ONAP.

• Service Designers: those who combine Virtual Functions (including VNFs) into Services in OpenECOMPin ONA
• DevOps: those who deploy, operate, and monitor OpenECOMP ONAP Services containing VNFs

There are three stages in the life cycle of a VNF, shown here:

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• identifies audiences interested in VNFs
• describes the VNF environment
• gives an overview of requirements
• points out differences between OpenECOMP ONAP VNFs and ETSI VNFs

VNF Cloud Readiness Requirements for OpenECOMP

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• provides recommendations and standards for building Heat templates compatible with OpenECOMPwith ONA

Related Document: the Network Cloud

The following document describes how a network cloud should be configured to run the OpenECOMP ONAP platform. This is the kind of hosting environment assumed by a VNF.

<<DocRef: VNF Network Cloud Specification for OpenECOMP ONAP (Example)>>

Example VNFs Included

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with ONA

The example VNFs distributed with OpenECOMP ONAP are:

• vFW (Firewall)
• vDNS (Domain Name Server).

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