Chapter 1. Technology and definitions
1.1. Open Network Automation Platform
Open Network Automation Platform (ONAP) provides orchestration and automation capabilities for physical as well as virtual network functions. It reduces the cost and time needed to implement new service offerings by exploiting new paradigms of software defined networking as well as network function virtualization. ONAP provides the following capabilities:
- Builds service by modeling resources and their relationships.
- Automates the instantiation of services based on policies.
- Monitors the services using an analytics framework.
- Automates the life cycle management actions on services and underlying resources based on events and policies.
1.2. Policy
You can define a policy as a condition, requirement, constraint, decision or a need that must be provided, evaluated, maintained, and enforced. A policy can also be defined at a lower or functional level, such as a machine-readable rule or software condition or assertion which enables actions to be taken based on a trigger or request, specific to particular selected conditions in effect at that time.
The following table lists the policies that affect networking.
| Policy | Description |
|---|---|
| Virtual Network Function (VNF) placement | Rules governing where to place VNFs, including affinity rules |
| Data and feed management | What data to collect and when, their retention periods, and when and where to send events about issues |
| Access control | Who all can have access to which data |
| Trigger conditions and actions | Determine which conditions are actionable, and define what to do under those conditions |
| Interactions | How to handle the interactions between change management and fault and performance management |
