scope:

This Recommendation defines the metrics and measurement methods for the evaluation of the energy efficiency of functional components of a network functions virtualization (NFV) environment. Figure 1 shows the NFV function components in the scope of this Recommendation. The NFV functional components include virtual network functions (VNFs) and NFV infrastructure (NFVI) defined in the NFV architecture framework as described in [b-ETSI GS NFV 002]. Management and orchestration (MANO) is not included in the system under test, but will be eventually used as a test environment.

The measurement method described in the present Recommendation is intend to be used to assess and compare the energy efficiency of single functional components independently in both laboratory testing and pre-deployment testing. Energy efficiency of co-located VNFs sharing same platform resources cannot be compared by using the method defined in the present Recommendation. The scope of this Recommendation is not to define the measurement method in an operational NFV environment.

The present Recommendation is intended to define common energy efficiency measurement methods for NFV environments and not try to cover all different types of VNFs (e.g., firewall, gateway, etc.), but it does provide the basis to make an extensible definition.