NFVI Platform Capability Registry

This is the ETSI registry for key/value pairs used to represent NFVI platform capabilities and settings, as part of NFV VNF descriptors (VNFD).

Introduction

Some VNF suppliers make use of the underlying NFVI platform capabilities in order to accelerate performance and optimize throughput of their VNF products. In order to ensure proper instantiation and operation of such VNFs, the VNF Descriptor is used to describe VNF-specific  NFVI platform capability requirements that will be matched against the capabilities of the underlying hardware infrastructure resources, in order to ensure that appropriate resources are used for instantiation.

This registry is defined to specify capabilities that are generic to all vendors of NFVI platform components, as well as capabilities that are NFVI vendor specific. There are five different categories of capability requirements that can be specified in the VNFD: CPU, memory, storage, network and logical node requirements. They are defined in terms of data model (i.e. TOSCA, YANG) neutral attributes within information elements specified in ETSI GS NFV-IFA 011 version 2.5.1 and beyond.

The table below provides an overview of the information elements and attributes defined in ETSI GS NFV-IFA 011 where the capability requirements are included for each of these five categories.

Category	IFA011 Information Element	Attribute
CPU	VirtualCpuData	vduCpuRequirements
MEMORY	VirtualMemoryData	vduMemRequirements
STORAGE	BlockStorageData	vduStorageRequirements
NETWORK	VirtualNetworkInterfaceRequirements	networkInterfaceRequirements
LOGICAL NODE	LogicalNodeRequirements	logicalNodeRequirementDetail

Each category corresponds to a table in the registry, with the entries in each table specifying the NFVI platform capabilities of this category. Each entry contains the following information items:

Name	The name of the capability specified in lower camel case, for example memoryPageSize.
Permitted Value	One or more permitted values used to configure the capability specified in lower camel case.This information may be omitted when a schema is specified.
Version	The version of the capability specified as a decimal (X.X). There may be multiple versions supported. The versioning shall begin with 1.0 and be increased every time there is a change to the capability.
Schema	The schema used to validate and configure the associated value. This information may be omitted if the list of permitted values is present. If present the schema shall be a JSON schema.
Type	If the capability is applicable to any NFVI platform then this takes a value of "Generic". If not, the value is vendor specific such as Intel ® or ARM ®, etc.
Description	A short description of the capability, such as “memory page size.

The process for creating entries in this registry is subject to a governance process described in HPC registry operation.

The Registry

The entries in the tables below represent NFVI capabilities supported by NFVI vendors of NFVI components. When a capability is identified as "Generic" it implies the capability is applicable to any NFVI platform. Otherwise the NFVI capability is specified as vendor specific and thus is only supported by NFVI platform components provided by that vendor.

CPU Requirements – Example entry in the Registry

Name	Permitted Value	Version	Schema	Type	Description
cpuModelSpecificationBinding	strictBinding equalOrBetterBinding	1.0		Generic	VDUs may be developed, compiled, optimized or validated on particular CPU models. Some deployments may wish to permit the VDU to be deployed on a platform with the specified CPU only, or with an alternative CPU with the same architecture, instruction set, and if specified, instruction set extensions, or with a CPU of equivalent or greater capability.

Memory Requirements – Example entry in the Registry

Name	Permitted Value	Version	Schema	Type	Description
memoryPageSize	ANY, 4KB, 2MB, 1GB	1.0		Generic	Memory page size

Storage Requirements – Example entry in the Registry

Name	Permitted Value	Version	Schema	Type	Description
storageLops	0..N	1.0		Generic	Required storage characteristics (e.g. speed), including Key Quality Indicators (KQIs) for performance and reliability/availability
storageResilencyMechanism	Erasure tripleReplication	1.0		Generic	Erasure code based back-end, triple replication based back-end for ensuring data resiliency.

Network Requirements – Example entry in the Registry

Name	Permitted Value	Version	Schema	Type	Description
nicFeature	LSO, LRO, RSS, RDMA	1.0		Generic	Long list of NIC related items such as LSO, LRO, RSS, RDMA, etc

Logical Node Requirement Detail

The logical node requirements are broken-out into three types: Compute, Memory, and I/O.

Logical Node Compute Requirements – Example entry in the Registry

Name	Permitted Value	Version	Schema	Type	Description
numberCpu	0..N	1.0		Generic	Number of CPU cores for this logical node. The cumulative number of CPU requests per node must equal the VDU level numVirtualCpu requirement.

Logical Node Memory Requirements – Example entry in the Registry

Name	Permitted Value	Version	Schema	Type	Description
localNumaMemorySize	0..N	1.0		Generic	The amount of memory that needs to be collocated with this specific logical (NUMA) node.

Logical Node I/O Requirements – Example entry in the Registry

Name	Permitted Value	Version	Schema	Type	Description
pciVendorId		1.0		Generic	PCI-SIG vendor ID for the device

Mappings to Specific Data Models

Mapping to ETSI GS NFV-SOL 001 data model (TOSCA)

Mapping Table

For each of the five platform capability categories - CPU, memory, storage, network and logical node - the associated attribute defined in ETSI GS NFV-IFA 011 is mapped to a property of type “map of string” of a TOSCA data type specified in ETSI GS NFV-SOL 001. The following table describes for each attribute defined in ETSI GS NFV-IFA 011 and representing one of these five categories, the corresponding TOSCA property, the TOSCA data type where this property is used and the TOSCA node type where this data type is used, in accordance with ETSI GS NFV-SOL 001 v2.5.1 and beyond.

Category	IFA011 Attribute	As Property	Data Type Defined in SOL001	Used in SOL001
CPU	vduCpuRequirements	vdu_cpu_requirements	tosca.datatypes.nfv.VirtualCpu	tosca.nodes.nfv.Vdu.Compute
Memory	vduMemRequirements	vdu_mem_requirements	tosca.datatypes.nfv.VirtualMemory	tosca.nodes.nfv.Vdu.Compute
Network	networkInterfaceRequirements	network_interface_requirements	tosca.datatypes.nfv.VirtualNetworkInterfaceRequirements	tosca.nodes.nfv.VduCp tosca.nodes.nfv.VnfExtCp
Storage	vduStorageRequirements	vdu_storage_requirements	tosca.datatypes.nfv.VirtualBlockStorageData	tosca.nodes.nfv.Vdu.VirtualBlockStorage
Logical Node	logicalNodeRequirementDetail	logical_node_requirements	tosca.datatypes.nfv.LogicalNodeData	tosca.nodes.nfv.Vdu.Compute

Key/Value Pair Entry Format

Each entry in the hash maps defined above fully defines a single NFVI platform capability. Within a given hash map entry, the "key" portion of the entry contains the capability name (as defined in the registry) and the "value" portion contains structured data in the form of key value pairs as described in the following table.

Array Entry	Values
<key>	A string specifying the name of a given NFVI platform capability as defined in the "name" element of an entry of a given registry table.
<value>	An optional map of key-value pairs describing the configuration value of a given capability, where the key-value pairs are defined as follows
	key type value version string A quoted string describing the version of the capability. This is taken from the “version” element of an entry of a given registry table. If absent, any version of the capability can be used to fulfil the requirement. mandatory string A boolean value expressed in quoted string type specifying whether the requested capability is mandatory for proper operation of the VNF. The value of "true" indicates that a given NFVI platform capability must be present. The value of "false" indicates that the VNF can function with or without the capability. If absent, the value of “false” is assumed. configurationValue string A quoted string describing the configuration value of a given capability, as defined by the schema or the permitted values specified in the registry. If absent, no particular configuration is required.
...	Structured data representing the NFVI platform capability configuration value-specific attributes can vary from a single attribute to complex permutations of simple attributes, lists and hash maps.

Examples

CPU NFVI Capabilities

Usage of vdu_cpu_requirements key-value pairs as specified in tosca.nodes.nfv.Vdu.Compute. Note in this example that there is one  NFVI capability being defined: simulatenousMultiThreading. This is the “key”. The  associated “value” is composed of a specification of "mandatory" and "configurationValue" which form a complex value.

<some entity>

...

        properties:

                  vdu_cpu_requirements:

                       simultaneousMultiThreading:|

                           mandatory: "true"

                           configurationValue: "enabled"

...

Memory Hardware Capabilities

Usage of vdu_mem_requirements key-value pairs as specified in tosca.nodes.nfv.Vdu.Compute. Note in this example that there are two NFVI capabilities being defined: memoryPageSize and numberOfPages. These are the “keys”. Each associated “value” is composed of a specification of: "mandatory" and "configurationValue" which form a complex value.

<some entity>

...

         properties:

                  vdu_mem_requirements: |

                        memoryPageSize:

                            mandatory: "true"

                            configurationValue: "2 MB"

                        numberOfPages: |

                            mandatory: "true"

                            configurationValue: "1024"

...

...

Storage Hardware Capabilities

Usage of vdu_storage_requirements key-value pairs as specified in tosca.nodes.nfv.Vdu.VirtualBlockStorage. Note in this example that there is one NFVI capability being defined: storageResiliencyMechanism. This is the “key”. The associated “value” is composed of a specification of "mandatory" and "configurationValue" which form a complex value.

<some entity>

...

         properties:

                  vdu_storage_requirements:

                        storageResiliencyMechanism: |

                            mandatory: "true"

                            configurationValue: "tripleReplication"

...

...

Network Hardware Capabilities

Usage of network_interface_requirements key-value pairs as specified in tosca.nodes.nfv.VduCp or tosca.nodes.nfv.VnfExtCp. Note in this example that there is one NFVI capability being defined: dataProcessingAccelerationLibrary.  This is the “key”. The associated “value” is composed of a specification of "mandatory" and "configurationValue" which form a complex value.

<some entity>

...

         properties:

                  network_interface_requirements:

                        dataProcessingAccelerationLibrary: |

                            mandatory: "true"

                            configurationValue: "dpdk"

...

...

Logical Node Hardware Capabilities

Usage of logical_node_requirements key-value pairs pairs as specified in tosca.nodes.nfv.Vdu.Compute. Note in this example that there are three NFVI capabilities being defined: numberCpu, localNumaMemorySize, and pciDeviceLocalToNumaNode. These are the “keys”. Each associated “value” is composed of a specification of "mandatory" and "configurationValue" which form a complex value.

<some entity>

...

         properties:

                  logical_node_requirements:

                        numberCpu: |

                            mandatory: "true"

                            configurationValue: "1"

                        localNumaMemorySize: |

                            mandatory: "true"

                            configurationValue: "4096"

                         pciDeviceLocalToNumaNode: |

                            mandatory: "true"

                            configurationValue: "required"

...

...

Mapping to ETSI NFV-SOL 006 data model (YANG)

To be defined

Registration process

Link to Registration Template

Operation of the Registry