What are the differences between VNFs and CNFs? How those differences may influence the development process / NF’s functionality?
Hi Lara,
The main difference is that VNFs are network functions based on virtual machines, and CNFs are based on containers. Whether you choose one or another, the functionality of the NF is not affected.
The development process don’t change for the application itself, but for its adaptation to the 5G world. In this way, if your choice is to use VNFs, you will have to embed your solution inside VMs, indicating the image, resources, network connections it needs. As OSM is the orchestrator used in the project, you will need to define this information in the VNFs and NSDs that compose the 5G Network Application. You can find an example in this post: https://community.5gasp.eu/index.php/2021/09/13/vobu-example-of-netapp-design-and-development/. On the other hand, if your choice is to use CNFs, you will have to define the containers that will support the application and how they are related. As Kubernetes is the choice to manage containers, you will have to define the manifests and the Helm charts to make it work.
Regards,
Jorge.