Offering Cloud Native Network Services to Residential Users

The recent spread of cloud technologies and new virtualization paradigms has created new possibilities in the way telecom operators offer network services, such as parental control services, to residential clients. The transition to a cloud-native-based context marked the evolution of a well-known technology in the world of computer networks: Network Function Virtualization (NFV). In a standard NFV scenario, Virtual Netowork Functions (VNFs) are deployed as virtual machines on physical servers; in a cloud-native NFV scenario, however, network functions, which are now called Cloud Native Network Functions (CNFs), run inside containers and are possibly managed through a container orchestrator system, such as Kubernetes. This evolution has forced telecom operators to also evolve their residential broadband access technologies, pushing them towards the adoption of a cloud-native model. This thesis analyzes SDN-Enabled Broadband Access (SEBA), one of the most promising technologies regarding the cloud-native residential broadband access management, and its integration with the Network Service Mesh project, which enables the creation of multiple CNFs meshes in Kubernetes. The fusion of these two technologies allows telecom operators to offer its customers network services fully deployed in Kubernetes with CNFs, improving at the same time the management of these services thanks to the advantages offered by the cloud environment, such as greater scalability and enhanced monitoring capabilities. In the first part of the work a brief analysis of cloud native network functions in Kubernetes is provided, also addressing the problem of creating service chains with Network Service Mesh. The framework offers a system to define a network service made of one or more CNFs and a system to create virtual wires to connect together pods which are part of the network service, allowing the traffic to flow inside the defined chain. However, NSM alone cannot be directly used to drive end-users' traffic inside a service mesh, since they does not run pods inside their devices. It is therefore necessary to find a way to bring cloud-native technologies closer to residential users. One of the most prominent solutions to the problem is the SEBA framework, which leverages SND, NFV, Kubernetes and other technologies to provide a cloud-native, open and programmable architecture to manage the central office and the access network of an internet service provider. A deep analysis of this framework is carried out, both from the point of view of the control plane and data plane, also explaining the differences between the broadband access management system currently used by operators and the one managed with SEBA. Finally, this thesis presents also the technical details to integrate the two systems together, highlighting the incompatibilities of the two systems and the solutions implemented to resolve them, showing two different scenarios and analyzing the performance impact of the fusion of the two systems.