Introducing Radiator VNF Flex

 As a recent addition to our portfolio, we have been developing Radiator VNF Flex. Radiator VNF Flex is our new approach to NFV solutions. It focuses on managing and scaling Radiator.  Built for flexibility, Radiator VNF Flex is designed to work on top of various virtualisation environments, and is suitable for carriers, CSPs and other customers that need a scalable AAA VNF solution.

Radiator VNF Flex consists of Radiator VNF and Radiator VNF Manager. Radiator VNF Manager makes it possible to deploy and manage multiple Radiator VNFs with different configurations within one virtualisation infrastructure (VI). The architecture of the Radiator VNF Manager is designed so that multiple virtualisation infrastructures can be utilised with Virtualisation Infrastructure (VI) specific Radiator VNF Manager images. 

As all Radiator VNFs are deployed and managed by independent Radiator VNF Manager, and based on Ansible playbooks, Radiator VNF Flex is better equipped to survive Virtualisation Infrastructure or Management and Orchestration (MANO) upgrades with less additional migration, upgrade and testing work.

In the picture below, we present an example deployment for Radiator VNF Flex:

As can be seen from the image, different Radiator VNF instances then connect to customer services, such as log management and visualization systems, external databases and OSS/BSS systems. Also, it should be noted that Radiator VNF Flex does not limit Radiator VNF configurations: any Radiator configuration can be adapted to be a Radiator VNF configuration deployed by Radiator VNF Manager.

The transition process to Radiator VNF Flex is made easy. Radiator VNF Manager makes it easy to quickly deploy Radiator into production without time-consuming integration with general or third-party VNF managers. Own VNF Manager also protects the VNF and its configuration from third-party managers and components. This makes virtualisation infrastructure upgrades easier as Radiator VNF Manager handles management and orchestration of all Radiator VNFs.

To sum up, the key features of Radiator VNF Flex:

• New Ansible-based AAA solution from Radiator
• Easier deployment to production without time-consuming integration to third party VNF managers
  
• All Radiator AAA configurations and functionalities can be implemented
• First available on OpenStack, other support based on customer needs
• Supports Linux distributions based on customer needs 
• Radiator VNF Manager is provided as a separate virtual image

Would you like to know more about Radiator VNF Flex?

We are currently engaging multiple projects with Radiator VNF Flex. If you are interested in virtualising your AAA solution, please contact us at info(a)radiatorsoftware.com. We are happy to have a discussion about your use case and project, and tell how Radiator VNF Flex would suit your needs.

Radiator Software Ansible playbooks for easy Radiator setup and instance management

To help manage and install Radiator in a more automatic way, we now provide Radiator Software Ansible playbooks as part of the goodies available in every Radiator package. The playbooks make it easy to:

• Install Radiator with basic prerequisites easily to multiple servers in single command.
  
• Upgrade or downgrade Radiator to multiple servers in single command.
• Deploy multiple Radiator configurations to multiple servers running Radiator, in single command/Deploy Radiator configuration to single server running multiple Radiator instances.
• Rollback latest Radiator configuration deployment quickly to previous Radiator configuration.
  
• Restart/start/stop all Radiator instances on multiple servers running Radiator in single command.

As general playbooks aimed for easy automation starting point, these playbooks are usable with Radiator RPM/deb packages after a few simple steps like setting up the Ansible control node and Radiator servers with SSH user for Ansible to use. After that just create your Radiator configuration and run the playbooks to setup the Radiator server and deploy the configuration. There are very simple authentication and accounting example configurations available in the Ansible role used by the deployment playbook, so testing the system is possible by just deploying the default example configurations. 

These playbooks are meant to be a starting point for various situations, but naturally they do not answer every need. So go ahead and modify the playbooks when needed! We do recommend storing both the modified playbooks (with the Ansible roles) and Radiator configurations deployed by these playbooks to a version control of your choice. Although for the rollback mechanism there is a simple backup system built-in, it is strictly for the rollback and is limited to the latest deployed Radiator configuration version only.

To get the Radiator Software Ansible playbooks, just download the latest Radiator package of your choice. When using the playbooks, Radiator is not required to be installed on the Ansible control node, but if it is you should copy the playbooks from the default location to some other location for usage. This way upgrading the possible Radiator installation on Ansible control node does not overwrite any changes you may have done to Ansible related files.

Check out the README document from the goodies/Ansible directory for how to run the playbooks!

Find more information about Ansible and Ansible playbooks on Ansible website.

 Requirements for using the Radiator Software Ansible playbooks

• Ansible 2.7 is the minimum supported version on Ansible control node.
• Supported Radiator host Linux distributions are Ubuntu 18.04 or newer, Debian 10 or newer, CentOS 7 or newer, and RHEL 7 or newer.
• Radiator hosts must have sudo capable SSH user that Ansible can use.
• Radiator hosts need internet access for apt/yum/dnf usage.
  
• Radiator and/or Radius::UtilXS installation files (RPM/deb) are available on Ansible control node.