ARCHIVED and UNMAINTAINED PROJECT

This project is no longer maintained

See Cloud Native Telecom Initiative (CNTI) for active areas that continued the work previously seen in this project.

CNTI Test Catalog (previously CNF Test Suite)
CNTI Best Practices (previously CNF WG)
CNTI Certification (previously CNF Certification)

CNF (Cloud native Network Function) Testbed

This project is no longer maintained

The CNCF CNF Testbed provides reference code and test cases for running networking code on Kubernetes and OpenStack using emerging cloud native technologies in the Telecom domain.

Status: The CNF Testbed is an initiative to create a repeatable, apples-to-apples testbed that telcos and telecoms vendors can use to evaluate how CNF architectures compare to more traditional VNF ones.

The initiative collaborates with the CNF Working Group and CNF Test Suite to test and demonstrate different options.

Note: Additional reference code and benchmarking tests will be added incrementally.

CNF Testbed purpose and ideal outcome?

The CNF Testbed will help facilitate the transition in the NFV world from virtualized hardware running network functions to lightweight, network functions following cloud-native methodologies running on Kubernetes in public, private, or hybrid clouds.

The reference code and comparisons from the CNF Testbed support the claim that CNFs orchestrated by Kubernetes will provide 3 major benefits to service providers:

Cost savings (capex/opex)
Improved resiliency
Higher development velocity

The ideal outcome of the CNF Testbed is that a third party developer can run the provided CNF reference code/benchmarking tests with an API key and a couple of CLI commands. Furthermore, a developer can re-use some or all of the software in their own environment with minimal, or at least isolated modifications.

Background info

Please review this slide deck.

CNF Testbed goals

The CNF Testbed includes the following high-level goals:

Development platform for CNFs
Comparing Virtual Network Functions (VNFs) to CNF implementations
Providing easily reproducible test cases and use cases
Providing Helm Charts for CNFs
Using 100% open source software
Supporting automated deployment from bare-metal up
Building the software in working, composable parts

Let’s see some of the test cases

So far the project has been focused on provisioning the infrastructure to support data plane CNF test cases that would be of interest to a service provider. This includes building up from minimal, single NFs running on KVM and Docker to OpenStack and K8s.

Events and recurring testing:

(recurring) Baseline NF Performance on Packet
(recurring) Baseline NF Performance on CSIT
Mellanox Chained IP Routers: OpenStack & K8s
Kubecon NA 2019 Chained IP Routers
Box-by-box KVM and Docker

Getting Involved and Contributing

Are you interested in contributing to CNFs? We, the maintainers and community, would love your suggestions, contributions, and help! Please email info@cncf.io or open an issue or pull request if you have questions or suggestions.

What this means:

Issues

Point out issues that are duplicates, out of date, etc.

Pull Requests

Read and review the code. Leave comments, questions, and critiques.
Download, compile, and run the code and make sure the tests pass.
- Also verify that the test cases follow best architectural patterns and include tests.