(upbeat music)
- Hello everyone, my name is Swati.
I'm a Program Manager in Azure for Operators at Microsoft.
If you are an enterprise
looking to simplify your virtual edge networking solutions
by rapidly deploying network functions
and managing them from the cloud at the same time,
this video is for you.
Before we jump into the highlight of the video
which is Azure Network Function Manager, or NFM,
let's look into and refresh our memories
on Azure private MEC.
Earlier this year, we introduced Azure private MEC,
which is basically a bundle of
edge compute multi-axis networking stacks
and application services,
all running together on the connected edge
at an enterprise premise.
With Azure private MEC,
we want to enable high performance, low latency,
wireless and edge networking services,
which run at the smallest footprint edge.
We also want to make IoT edge development easier,
by bundling Azure edge services together with networking.
This is going to accelerate your time to market
and let you securely manage services from the cloud.
Having said that,
let's look at the key features
of Azure Network Function Manager, or NFM,
which simplifies the deployment and management of complex
edge networking functions, right on your edge hardware.
We are excited to announce that Network Function Manager
or NFM, is now generally available for you to deploy
specialized network functions like 4G, 5G,
SD-WAN, and VPN onto your edge hardware.
The supported hardware today is Azure Stack Edge Pro,
which is an AI enabled hardware as a service
offered by Microsoft.
Now let's look at the three key features of NFM,
which make this simplification possible.
Firstly, in public Azure today,
you can already use the Azure marketplace experience
for deploying the variety
of industry leading network functions into your Azure VNET.
With NFM, we extend this experience onto the edge
and add specialized network functions like 4G and 5G.
Secondly,
take advantage of the consistent management experience
that Azure offers today for lifecycle management
of all of your network functions.
You can use consistent policy updates,
role-based access control,
as well as governance,
for all of your network functions at the same time.
And finally,
when building the service it was really important for us,
to allow our customers to rapidly deploy these
network functions in a matter of minutes and not days.
You can now automate a global deployment of
a fleet of network functions
that are running on your Azure Stack edge devices
by using arm APIs and SDKs that we have built for you.
With Network Function Manager,
it was important for us to build a service
that lets customers choose from a variety
of network functions to deploy onto their edge hardware.
In addition to a Affirmed and Metaswitch,
which are our first party packet core network functions,
we have worked with a variety of industry leading partners
to pre-validate the network functions
and allow them to run on Azure Stack Edge Pro.
You can now get a consistent cloud-to-edge experience
for a network function like VMware VeloCloud,
to deploy it into your Azure public cloud in a VNET,
into an Azure virtual WAN,
or an Azure Stack Edge device via Network Function Manager.
With this,
let me hand this over to our Senior DEV Engineer,
Chakshu Sardana,
who will walk you in real time through what we built.
Chakshu will walk you through
the click and deploy experience for two network functions -
a mobile packet core, as well as a virtualized RAN -
so that you can see how easy it is to deploy
and set up your own private LTE or 5G network.
- Hi, I'm Chakshu Sardana.
I'm a Senior Engineer on the
Azure Network Function Manager team.
I'm excited to show the demos we have lined up for you.
So one of our partners is Affirmed,
which offers the Affirmed Private Network Service solution.
So APNS is a solution that's offering private LTE
and private 5G network capabilities to enterprises.
With APNs,
Affirmed has combined its mobile core technology
with Azure's capabilities,
to provide a complete turnkey solution for the enterprises.
So the APNS solution
is composed of the following components.
First, we have the Service Manager.
Service Manager is an application that allows
the customers to deploy, manage, and monitor
the private network resources.
The Service Manager provides a GUI-driven portal
that has a complete set of features,
including self-activation
and management of private network resources.
Service Manager is hosted on the Azure platform,
and can be access to the Azure portal
as it's deployed as a managed application.
Second, we have the Network Function Manager.
NFM is the orchestration engine.
NFM allows APIs that are called through the Service Manager,
through which we deploy and configure
the network functions on the Azure platform.
For the NFM APIs,
we need to have the NFM device activated
and configured corresponding to the Azure Stack Edge Pro.
Third, we have the Azure Stack Edge Pro.
ASE Pro is a hardware-as-a-service offering by Microsoft.
With ASE, we bring in the Azure cloud's power
to a local and robust server.
We need to activate the ASE in order to have
the network functions used by the mobile core,
deployed on the customer premises.
Fourth and finally, we have the Affirmed mobile core.
The Affirmed mobile core is
the heart of any private mobile core network.
It has a bunch of network functions
which are 3GPP compliant, and has multiple components
like the gateway, SSF, MME, et cetera.
Now let's see how easy it is
to create a private network and deploy network functions
using APNS and Network Function Manager.
As you see we already have the location,
topology, and
service manager configured with the subscription details.
Next let's create a network with the standalone
configuration.
Now we have to provide a couple of parameters over here.
First, we have the name. Next,
we have the resource group where the resources would be
deployed. For the packet code version, we'll use 1.0.
Let's use the existing MNC and the MTC code values.
For the location,
the drop down over here shows all the locations configured
earlier on the topology management screen.
Let's select action for a deployment.
We'll deploy in east US region.
A good thing about the solution is we need not configure
the subnets again.
The management LAN and the WAN network details are
automatically populated from the actual location that's
already configured.
So for this deployment,
we're creating a network with the standalone configuration,
but if you were to create a network with the SA
configuration, you'd have to check the redundant option.
Now you will see, we have to provide two devices.
Let me check the box for now.
So for this deployment, we'll be using PLD three.
So for the NTP server, here's the server IP.
Time zone, we'll use Europe.
Then we also have the option to use system donated IPs or
custom IPs for a location Acton we'll use system-generated
IPS. Finally, we hit the submit button.
Behind the scenes, the service manager calls the NFMA APIs,
which then does the provisioning.
On the left we have the preview.
We can see that the deployment is in progress.
Let's move to the familiar Azure portal to check the NFM
device.
So this will show the network function in the provisioning
state. So this will take some time.
So let me show you how it looks in Azure once it's complete.
So here we can see the different components of a network.
The MME, HSS and the gateway are successfully deployed.
For the APNS we also use the zero trust network solution
provided by one of our partners Net Foundry.
So this is how easy it is to create a private network and
deploy network functions,
using network function manager and APNS.
Now that we've seen a mobile packet code-based private
network solution,
we also have a partner, ASOCS, that offers a virtualized
RAN solution. For deploying a network function using NFM,
we need to have an activity ASE.
Here, I already have an online activated ASE ready.
Next, we need to create and register an NFM device.
For this, they have to provide some details
like the subscription,
the resource group, the region, the device name,
and finally the corresponding ASE. With this we'll have the
NFM device ready for deploying network functions.
The ASOCS VRAN is offered as a managed application in Azure,
which makes the network function deployment really easy.
Here, in the Azure marketplace, we have sizes,
which is the ASOCS RAN solution.
The CYRUS RAN consists of four components that have to be
deployed to have a complete virtualized RAN solution.
All of these components are available as managed app
offerings in the Azure marketplace for the demo that's
deployed the UDU network function. For this,
we have to provide some details like the subscription,
the resource group, the region, the device name,
the application name, and then we hit next.
Here, we provide the NF name.
Then we have to add the user assigned identity.
Finally,
you provide the network details like the IP, subnet, and the
gateway.
When we hit next, we run some validations in the background.
Finally, when all the validations are done,
we hit create.
And with this we'll have the RAN network function deployed
this easily.
Similar to a first party offering of APNS,
we support and offer Celona as a third-party solution for
private LTE and 5G networks.
Let's quickly talk through a user scenario.
The scenario covered here is a factory floor with the need
for secure on-prem private LTE network for superior
performance of their industrial robots.
So private LTE network requires expertise on various fronts.
It requires acquiring of private spectrum devices.
Sims are design deployment of access points and so on.
So first step in the solution would be to pick one of the
many offers available from our MSPs in Azure marketplace to
get an end to end Celona private LD solution.
So MSP and Celona will design the complex network and ship
hardware like SIM cards and access points. Next,
the customer can use the Azure portal to order and activate
an ASE, deploy Celona Edge as a managed application,
via Azure Network Function Manager.
Now all the elements of private LTE network can be managed
by the Celona orchestrator.
Finally, whether you are the customer or the MSP,
you can utilize the Network Function Manager to make this
entire experience come alive in a few clicks via the Azure
marketplace. With that, back to you Swati.
- Thank you, Chakshu. To summarize,
Chakshu just demoed three use cases which showcase
the power of Network Function Manager to rapidly deploy your
network functions and manage them from the Azure portal.
We invite you to learn more about this generally available
service by going to the AKA MS links shown
on the screen and leaving your valuable
feedback.
We look forward to connecting with you and thank you.