Above photo is copyright of Telenor Pakistan

Overview

As Telco Operators embark on their cloud transformation journeys and start migrating their bare metal network functions onto Cloud-based Virtualized Network Functions (VNF) one of the first challenges they face is how to accurately dimension their Network Functions Virtualized Infrastructure (NFVI) hardware ie. the servers, switches, etc. for their telco cloud data centers.

Whereas cloud infrastructure requirements for IT workloads are reasonably straightforward to estimate, based primarily on the total vCPU, vRAM, and vDISK requirements, the dimensioning of telco workloads is significantly more complex. Parameters such as anti-affinity rules, CPU Pinning requirements, NUMA localisation, total throughput, hardware acceleration requirements, etc. make the dimensioning of cloud infrastructure for VNFs quite challenging.

To use a very simple example, two virtual machines (VM), each requiring 2 vCPUs, can be deployed on any one server that has 4 vCPUs available. However, if these same two VMs have an anti-affinity relationship of 2 that would mean that they must be deployed on separate servers to achieve the resiliency requirements, thus immediately doubling the hardware requirements to two servers and correspondingly using additional ports on the Top-of-Rack (ToR) switches.

Inaccurate dimensioning can lead to significant impact on the business case and TCO calculations, and ultimately result in gross miscalculation of the projected CAPEX and OPEX savings.

This online Data Center Dimensioning tool allows users to first model any type of data center hardware and to then perform dimensioning of this hardware for specific VNF workloads. It is a very useful tool for CSPs and Data Center providers to accurately forecast the capacity requirements and future growth of their infrastructure.

Please refer to the Frequenty Asked Questions (FAQs) for more details.

Who May Benefit From This Tool:

This tool is intended for:

✔  VNF Vendors who wish to deterine the hardware requirements to support their products.

✔  Communications Services Providers (CSPs) who wish to determine the OPEX and CAPEX for TCO calculations and Business Case preparation.

✔  Data Center Infrastructure service providers who wish to determine space, power, and cooling requirements to build and expand their Telco Cloud Infrastructure.

Users must have a good understanding of data center architecture and server hardware.