An ETSI NFV Implementation for Automatic Deployment and Configuration of a Virtualized Mobile Core Network

The recent trend of network disaggregation and community push towards open source network management and orchestration projects has given rise to a rich ecosystem of frameworks and tools. In particular, ETSI NFV proposes a conceptual, reference architecture standardizing management and control interfaces in softwarized mobile broadband networks. These frameworks present highly customizable features, embodying varying degrees of complexity, communed by a steep learning curve. In this article, we propose a stepby-step description of a virtualized testbed environment setup, adopting an NFV-compliant ecosystem, describing an implementation of the NFV SOL002 reference point which aims to standardize the lifecycle management of virtualized functions. In addition, we present an experimental assessment measuring the mobile core deployment times.