Empowering Network Service Developers: Enhanced NFV DevOps and Programmable MANO

Although network functions virtualization redefined the role of the network service developer, existing concepts that are supposed to enable them are still limited, cumbersome, and time consuming in regard to the promised flexibility. This article describes how to move forward from these initial steps, identifies the challenges network service developers face during both development and runtime, and explains how to overcome them with our SCK and programmable MANO framework. We detail how our SCK facilitates the service creation process, resulting in two enhanced NFV DevOps cycles, test flexibility and quicker service development. We elaborate on our programmable MANO framework with both architectural considerations and a use case, to depict its customizability by network service developers, giving them fine-grained control over their service throughout its end-to-end operational life cycle.