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

The primary audiences for this documentation are

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

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

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

Figure 1. VNF complete life cycle stages

Reference Documents for VNF Providers

The following reference documents contain guidelines and requirements for VNF Providers.

VNF Guidelines for Network Cloud and OpenECOMP

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

VNF Cloud Readiness Requirements for OpenECOMP

  • design requirements (API versioning, decomposition, reliance on open source database, packet size limitations)
  • resiliency requirements
  • security requirements

VNF Management Requirements for OpenECOMP

  • requirements imposed by the targeted network cloud infrastructure, including the hypervisor
  • identification requirements for the VNF and its components
  • configuration management requirements
    • a VNF must provide a Device YANG model
    • a VNF must implement a NETCONF server; the required NETCONF API's are referenced, and the supplier must demonstrate mounting the NETCONF server on OpenDaylight
  • monitoring and operations requirements
    • format of messages (event records)
    • frequency of reporting
    • security
  • licensing requirements

VNF Heat Template Requirements for OpenECOMP

  • provides recommendations and standards for building Heat templates compatible with OpenECOMP

Related Document: the Network Cloud

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

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

Example VNFs Included with OpenECOMP

The example VNFs distributed with OpenECOMP are:

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

The Installing and Running the OpenECOMP Demo page describes how to design and operate Services using these VNFs.

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