I would like to propose a discussion/break-out session around what would be involved in enabling ManageIQ to be part of an NFV (Network Function Virtualization) orchestration tool.
NFV is a hot topic at the moment, and there are multiple open source projects which are working to support NFV use-cases at the platform level, but I am not aware of another tool which is as well equipped to address the orchestration piece as ManageIQ is. You can find more details about the ETSI NFV description of requirements from an NFV platform here (PDF link).
An NFV solution consists of an infrastructure platform, the Virtual Network Functions (VNFs) running on top of that platform (such as voice, data, broadband and radio access, firewall, intrusion detection systems, etc), and the orchestration tool which deploys and manages the VNFs.
The needs for VNF orchestration are right in ManageIQ’s sweet spot:
- Need to match VMs which are part of a VNF with hardware which supports their quality of service requirements (in terms of network hardware throughput, VM affinity rules for load balancing, dataplane packet processing capabilities)
- Need to be able to orchestrate network topology for service chaining (ensuring, for example, that all data to a subnet goes through VPN endpoint, then IDS, then firewall, then load balancer, for example)
- Need to be able to rebalance based on network hot-spots and orchestrate underlying virtual network topology
Current NFV and network orchestration tools take care of a lot of these features, but they still need an orchestration tool underneath which will co-ordinate resources on the underlying virtual infrastructure.
I would like to propose that we have a working group session to discuss whether there is interest in extending ManageIQ to be able to manage the NFV use cases at the infrastructure level.