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In this specification, the terms must, must not, should, should not, and may have specific meanings defined here.

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Guidelines for Virtual Network Functions in a Network Cloud

The following document describes the high-level , in general terms, the requirements for VNFs, and should be considered required reading for VNF developers. It also provides background material: the motivation for VNFs, and the various audiences interested in VNFs. In addition, it spells points out, in general terms, the differences between OpenECOMP VNFs and ETSI VNFs.

<< point to the document "Guidelines for Virtual Network Functions in a Network Cloud" when it is "open" >>

Figure 1 VNF Complete Lifecycle Stages

VNF Requirements

The following document provides a comprehensive set of requirements that a VNF must meet. These VNFs must meet requirements that fall into the categories of packaging, configuration, run-time monitoring and management, and licensing. The document also specifies the contents of Also VNF must communicate using event records (indicating a change of state, or loggable event, for example).

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Finally, VNFs must conform to certain licensing restrictions, such as providing a universal license key, providing metrics (such as the number of subscribers), an not depending on a license server..

The following reference document lists, in detail, the requirements for VNFs. These requirements are grouped into the following categories: Network Cloud Infrastructure, Resiliency, Security, Deployment, Testing, Validation and Support, and Network.

<< Reference: "Common Requirements for Virtual Network Functions" >>

Specific additional requirements for VNFs to run in OpenECOMP can be found in: << << Another Reference: "OpenECOMP Requirements for Virtual Network Functions:>>

The VNF API

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All VNF's (in fact, all Virtual Functions of any kind) should contain monitoring properties.

VNF Attribute Definitions

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