Hello everyone, my name is Swati.
I'm so excited to talk to you today
about a cool new cloud service called
Azure Network function Manager.
Network Function Manager lets you deploy
cloud managed network functions like private
LTE, 5G or SD Wan solutions directly
on to our customers on premise.
So let's jump right into it.
So let's start with the big picture at Azure.
We believe in bringing consistent
Azure services, platform management
and security all the way from cloud
to the edge.
Looking at this diagram on the left
most is of course our Azure data centers
which are present on a global scale.
Next we also have Azure Edge zones which
are smaller footprint Azure and
could be placed in a Microsoft POP.
These are multi tenant solutions
and are fully managed by Microsoft.
The rightmost solution is
the focus of this video.
Azure MEC or Multi Access Edge compute
brings compute and connectivity all
the way to our customers premise.
This is a single tenant solution.
And will be fully managed by
Microsoft Partners. Today,
we offer Azure MEC on a first party
hardware called the Azure Stack Edge Pro,
but in the future we have plans to
expand it to other platforms as well as
first party hardware and 3rd party hardware.
Expanding a bit on what is Azure MEC or
what is Azure Multi Access Edge compute?
Simply put edge computing or multi
access edge compute brings low latency
access to real time applications.
Some examples of these applications would
be AR/VR, industrial robotics and more.
Now these applications become a natural
pair with emerging technologies
or emerging networks like private
LTE and 5G which bring the promise
of ultra low latency.
By bringing Azure all the way to the edge,
we bring you the simplicity,
the robustness,
maturity and flexibility that
you already love about Azure.
But now you can open it up to a whole new
ecosystem of advanced network functions
as well as applications at the edge.
Now that we've discussed what Azure
MEC is and why it's so important,
let's discuss how we plan to bring
it to you. Here on this slide you see
a list of managed service providers,
system integrators and technology
partners that we have collaborated with
to bring Azure MEC to our mutual customers.
An example MEC solution shown here
is a private LTE On-Prem network
which is a complex solution and the
complexity arises from acquiring
the spectrum as well as devices
, SIM cards
,RF design and the installation
of access points,
the edge computing infrastructure as
well as the VM's or the containers
that are running on it,
as well as the ongoing lifecycle
management of each of these components.
Our MSPs can make it easy and provide
their expertise to deploy and manage
all of these components for you.
Our MSPs can utilize the offers
that are easily available in Azure
Marketplace from our technology
partners and
only pick out those offers that a
customer needs help with. Familiar built-
in tools like resource delegation
provide permissions to the MSPs to
access a customers resource group so
that they can smoothly provide any kind
of support that a customer might need.
Again, this brings the simplicity of
cloud management to the edge for you.
To keep going with the theme of how we
hope to simplify on-premise networks,
we are proud to announce the public
preview of Azure Network Function Manager.
Network Function Manager is a fully managed
cloud native orchestration service that
helps you deploy network functions in
Azure MEC for a consistent hybrid experience.
The consistency comes from using
familiar tools like Azure Marketplace
to pick an offer, using Azure Portal
to deploy them using Azure Network
Function manager onto your Azure MEC.
as Azure Managed Applications.
To reiterate,
we believe that cloud management is
critical to accelerate the use cases that
are come around from emerging technologies.
Private LTE, 5G or SD Wan?
Let's understand a little bit more
about how Azure Network function
Manager brings simple cloud management
to a customers make deployment.
To start off and going from left to right,
you can use a hybrid experience by
leveraging the Azure marketplace
to pick from a curated list of pre
validated offers that are packaged
to function exactly like you want
them at the edge but are diploid,
just like you do in Azure or Azure cloud.
Secondly,
to get a good visibility and
consistency across multiple locations,
you can use Azure Portal for a
single pane of glass to manage all
of your distributed workloads.
And Lastly,
you don't have to be a networking
expert to manage the lifecycle
of your network functions.
These network functions are
packaged as managed applications,
which means that the publisher or
the partners have access into the
customers managed resource groups and
can provide the ongoing support and
updates for your network functions.
This ensures that the customers never
have to troubleshoot or diagnose any
issues and make it simple and easy
to manage their network functions.
Let's jump into two key scenarios
where we think that a customer would
greatly benefit from using Azure Network
function manager.Ehe first scenario
is a factory floor who would like
to deploy a secure on-prem private LTE
network for predictable performance
of let's say their industrial robots.
They are faced with the challenge of
how to acquire, design as well
as manage this complex solution.
So the recommended
example solution would be the following.
Step one: the customer could go to
Azure marketplace and pick out
one of the many MSP offers for an end-
to-end Celona private LTE solution.
Step #2 Celona would design the
network for them and ship them the
Sims as well as the access points
Directly. In step #3 the customer or
the MSP could go to Azure Portal and
use Azure Network Function Manager
to deploy the Celona edge which is their
packet core network directly onto an edge
appliance like the Azure Stack Edge Pro.
And in step #4, the customer or
MSP uses the celona orchestrator or
the Azure portal to completely manage
and deploy the private LTE network.
Now, whether you are this customer
or a managed service provider,
you can use Azure Network function Manager
to make this entire experience come
alive in a few clicks from Azure Portal,
which is what I'm going to demo next to you.
I'm in the Azure portal now where
I'm going to search for the Celona
offer in Azure Marketplace.
I click create to provide basic information
like subscription, resource group,
Location or region.
My network function Manager device,
which is basically a role on the edge
device like Azure Stack Edge Pro,
a name for my network function,
A name for the managed application that will
hold the network function inside of it.
Azure automatically creates the name
of a managed resource group for you.
Next, you put in the serial number that
was provided to you directly by Celona.
And finally review the inputs,
before clicking create. Your deployment NOTE Confidence: 0.7596735
starts straight away.
Behind the scenes we have done
technical integration with SCelona so
that your celona packet core
will be brought up on the edge device
like Azure Stack Edge and make a call
home to the Celona Orchestrator.
I am now in the Celona orchestrator
where I can see the status of the
Celona edge I just created by using
Azure Network function Manager.
I can also look at access points
at the same site and in this case
I have one connected CBRS AP.
I can also look at devices that
are connected and again I have one
activated device and I can see
details like IMSI and IP address.
To conclude,
you can view and monitor all the
components of your private LTE network,
like core deployed via Azure
Network function Manager,
access Points and devices in a single
pane from Celona Orchestrator,
making it easy and repeatable
to manage your network.
The second customer scenario I would
like to show you is a retailer that
already uses a VMWare's SD Wan edge,
for example in their Azure Vnet or
in their branch offices and would
now like to use a VMWare SD-WAN edge
on their Azure MEC on-premise.
They are faced with the challenge of having
consistent visibility into all
of their SD Wan edges and how to
deploy them in the same manner.
So the solution would be again
to go to the Azure portal,
use Azure Network function Manager
service to deploy the SD-WAN edge
Onto Azure MEC as a managed application
and from there on the customer could
manage all of their SD-WAN edges,
whether they're in an Azure vnet,
in a branch office or in Azure MEC,
by using the VMWare orchestrator
or the Azure portal.
So now let's look at this live in a demo.
I'm in the Azure portal now
where I search for the VMWare offer.
in the Azure marketplace.
Once I find the offer,
I click create and enter basic information
like my subscription, resource group ID,
the region or location,
my network function manager device,
URL for my VCO or VMWare
SD Wan orchestrator,
The activation key for the edge that
I can retrieve from the VCO as well,
a name for my network
function or my SD Wan edge.
And then IP addresses for my
Management, LAN and WAN interfaces.
I can choose static or DHCP IP
addresses depending on how my on
premise environment is set up.
Here I give it the basic
tuple of IP address,
subnet and default gateway.
Remember that you cannot use the first
four IP addresses of your subnet
because these are reserved by Azure.
So an example here would be that
for my management I cannot
use 10.0.0.1 to
10.0.0.3
as those are reserved.
I'll finish entering my static IP addresses,
my subnets and default gateway.
And then I'm going to proceed to give
a name to the managed application.
Azure automatically creates a
managed resource group name for you,
but you can change it if you like.
Once I'm done with all of the inputs,
and my validation has passed,
I agree to the terms and
conditions and click Create.
At this point in the background,
we have done the work with VMWare
so that your VMWare SD-Wan Edge
starts to get deployed on the edge
device like Azure Stack Edge Pro.
And it can be viewed and monitored
via the VMWare orchestrator.
I am now in the Velocloud Orchestrator
which shows you a single pane
of view for all of your edges.
The first edge is one that we just
created by Azure Network function
Manager in Azure Portal and I see
a status that it's activated.
Secondly, I see more edges like the one
that I have sitting in Microsoft campus
and then a third one that is sitting
in an Azure vnet in the public cloud.
I'm switching to the test and
troubleshoot tab where I can look at
remote diagnostics on the network
function that is on my Azure MEC.
Once the edge enters a live session,
you can see a lot of information,
but what I want to show you is that
you could look at the list of paths
that exist from this network function
or this SD Wan edge to appear.
For example, an edge sitting in Azure V Net.
Once I click run, I can see
if there's an active path
between the two edges.
And here you see that the link is
up and I can see the bandwidth,
latency, jitter and other information.
So to switch back and conclude,
within the Velo Cloud orchestrator
you can get a single pane of
view to view all of your edges,
whether they're in Azure MEC,
in an Azure public vnet,
or in a branch office.
To conclude, Azure Network function
Manager is a fully managed cloud
service that helps you deploy cloud
managed network functions for private,
LTE, 5G or SD Wan solutions and
enable a whole new ecosystem of
advanced use cases at the edge.