Network Services Overview

A network service is a final product offered to end users with a full description of its functionality and specified performance.

Administrative users deploy network services between two locations in a virtual network, so that traffic traveling in a specific direction on that link is subject to action from that service. The term network service is defined in the ETSI Network Functions Virtualization (NFV) standard.

A network service consists of a service chain of one or more linked network functions, which are provided by specific virtualized network functions (VNFs), with a defined direction for traffic flow and defined ingress and egress points. The term service chain refers to the structure of a network service, and although not defined in the ETSI NFV standard, this term is regularly used in NFV and software-defined networking (SDN).

A network service designer creates network services in Network Service Designer. When the designer publishes the service to the network service catalog from Network Service Designer, administrators can see the network service in Administration Portal.