Monday, May 23, 2016

Netronome Integrates P4 and C Programming on Production Server NICs

Netronome introduced a P4 and C compliant Integrated Development Environment (IDE) for dynamically programming new networking capabilities on its Agilio CX and LX family of intelligent server adapters (ISAs).

The news is significant because bringing SDN capabilities into a server NIC could help identify and resolve tenant application performance bottlenecks rapidly, enabling cloud service providers to maintain high levels of user experience.

For telco NFV deployments, Netronome said its solution enables a significantly higher degree of dynamic data center traffic observability, helping telco operators to pinpoint issues related to call drops or poor call and video quality in 4G and 5G networks. AT&T and Netronome are presenting and demonstrating this use case at the P4 Language Consortium workshop this week at Stanford University.

The P4 Language Consortium, of which Netronome is an active member, is currently developing specifications for the P4 programming language and associated compilers.The Netronome IDE leverages the Consortium’s open source P4 compiler to deliver 10 Gbps to 100 Gbps performance for popular data center networking functions using the Agilio server networking platform. Extensions developed by  Netronome also enable integration with optional C-based programming for sophisticated functions such as stateful processing.

“Server-based networking has evolved as the most widely deployed form of SDN; its fundamental tenets are feature velocity and control - important requirements for data center operators,” said Sujal Das, senior vice president and general manager, marketing and corporate strategy. “As a pioneer in hardware-accelerated, server-based networking solutions, we take great pride in being the first in the industry with shipping products that can truly help customers realize the value of integrated P4 and C programming for their data center applications.”

A beta release of the Netronome IDE with Programmer Studio v6.0 featuring P4 and C programming on Agilio CX and LX ISAs is available.

http://www.netronome.com
http://www.open-nfp.org
http://www.p4.org

Netronome Brings Hardware-Acceleration to OpenStack Networking

Netronome has tuned its Agilio Server Networking Platform for delivering hardware-acceleration for OpenStack networking, allowing data centers to accelerate applications such as network virtualization, security, load balancing and telemetry using different data plane options suitable for use cases spanning traditional IT to IaaS and Telco NFV workloads. Netronome's own testing has found a 5X boost in VM performance when network functions are offloaded to its Agilio interface cards.

At this week's OpenStack Summit in Austin, Netronome, in collaboration with Ericsson and Mirantis, is showcasing acceleration of open source datapath implementations, specifically, Open vSwitch (OVS), Stateful Firewall (Connection Tracking) and OpenContrail vRouter using Agilio CX intelligent server adapters. The company said this approach will be incorporated as an enhanced OpenStack networking plug-in architecture specification. As a result, critical networking functions that would otherwise hamper performance of the OpenStack implementation are offloaded to the Agilio platform, accommodating significantly more virtual machines per server leading to up to 6X lower TCO and higher services revenue per server compared to traditional NICs.
http://www.netronome.com


Netronome's Agilio Server Networking Accelerates Cloud Data Centers

Netronome introduced its Agilio Server Networking Platform for transparently offloading server-based networking data paths, such as open virtual switch (OVS), Juniper Networks Contrail vRouter, and Linux firewall.

The company said its hardware and software-based Agilio platform delivers up to 5X higher throughput while reducing CPU requirements by up to 80 percent compared to traditional NICs and server-based networking implemented in software.

Server-based networking is being widely deployed in cloud data centers to handle virtualization, firewalls, load balancing, telemetry, zero-trust security using micro-segmentation, virtual network functions (VNFs) and application-based analytics. The big cloud providers (AWS, Microsoft Azure, Google) are using server-based networking in their mega data centers. Netronome's Agilio solution accelerates such server-based networking functions by offloading compute-intensive flow and tunnel processing from the CPUs.

The Agilio CX intelligent server adapters (ISAs) are based on Netronome's own flow processing silicon (NFP-4000) and software architecture (Agilio Software). The Agilio ISAs use onboard memory to support up to two million security policies, and deliver 28Mpps of throughput using hardware-based acceleration.

NTT Creates High Density Optical Fiber with 19 Cores

Researchers at NTT, Fujikura, and Hokkaido University have demonstrated the world’s highest density optical fiber.

The optical fiber has a diameter of less than 250 µm and contains 19 optical paths (cores) that can support six kinds of optical signals (modes). It provides 114 (= 6 modes × 19 cores) spatially multiplexed communication paths (channels) in one optical fiber.

The researchers calculate that the ultra-large capacity optical fiber that can handle a Peta- to Exa-bit transmission capacity.

The work was partially based on work commissioned by the National Institute of Information and Communications Technology (NICT).

http://www.ntt.co.jp/news2016/1605e/160516a.html

Xilinx Adds Data Center Accelerators to 16nm UltraScale+ Roadmap

Xilinx plans to add acceleration enhanced technologies for the Data Center to its 16nm UltraScale+ product roadmap.

The resulting products will deliver the combination of Xilinx's 16nm FinFET+ FPGAs with integrated High-Bandwidth Memory (HBM), and support for the recently announced Cache Coherent Interconnect for Acceleration technology (CCIX).

CCIX is initially driven by a group of seven companies to enable an acceleration framework that works with multiple processor architectures.

Specifically, Xilinx HBM-enabled FPGAs will improve acceleration capabilities by offering 10X higher memory bandwidth relative to discrete memory channels. HBM technology enables multi-terabit memory bandwidth integrated in package for the lowest possible latency.

"Having already delivered 19 billion transistors on a chip at 20nm leveraging our second generation 3D IC technology, we are creating a third generation 3D IC breakthrough  for data center acceleration and other compute intensive designs," said Victor Peng, executive vice president and general manager, Programmable Products at Xilinx. "When combined with next generation CCIX acceleration framework and our software defined SDAccel™  development environment, this technology will enable a new breed of high-density, flexible platforms for accelerating compute, storage and networking applications."

http://www.xilinx.com

Microsoft Awards Grants for Affordable Internet Access

Microsoft announced Affordable Access Initiative grants for 12 entrepreneurial businesses to help scale their solutions and business models to increase affordable Internet access in communities around the world.

Microsoft's Affordable Access Initiative aims to democratize access to the Internet through grants, commercial partnerships, connecting new leaders and community engagement.

The winners are:

Power Solutions
African Renewable Energy Distributor (Rwanda)
New Sun Road (Uganda)

Hardware Solutions
Zaya Learning Labs (India)

Connectivity Solutions
AirJaldi (India)
Axiom Technologies (United States)
C3: Communications Consulting Centre (Malawi)
Ekovolt (Nigeria)
Wi-Fi Interactive Network (Philippines)

Application Solutions
Kelase (Indonesia)
Movivo (United Kingdom)
Tambero.com (Argentina)
VistaBotswana (Botswana)

"With more than half of the world's population lacking access to the Internet, connectivity is a global challenge that demands creative problem solving," said Peggy Johnson, executive vice president of business development at Microsoft. "By using technology that's available now and partnering with local entrepreneurs who understand the needs of their communities, our hope is to create sustainable solutions that will not only have impact today but also in the years to come."

https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/affordable-access-initiative/home

Telco Systems Releases CloudMetro 10 vCPE Platform

Telco Systems has released its CloudMetro 10, a new 1GE virtualization platform and announced the completion of a series of commercial trials with Tier 1 service providers around the world.

CloudMetro 10 is a new member of Telco Systems' Open Metro Edge (OME) portfolio, which includes CloudMetro vCPE 1GE to 10GE family of virtualization platforms, EdgeGenie Orchestrator for management and orchestration, and TelcoApps library of pre-configured packages of virtualized network functions.

CloudMetro 10 supports hardware acceleration and pre-integrated VNF applications enabling carrier-grade performance with multi-service chaining.

Telco Systems has also expanded its library of VNF applications, which includes security, routing, SD-WAN and WAN-optimization services from leading vendors, including Check Point, Audio Codes, Palo Alto and Netrounds.  The company has recently successfully tested additional VNF applications with Cisco, Brocade, Juniper, Silver Peak, Riverbed and Fortinet.

"We are proud of the progress and achievements we have made with our CloudMetro platforms and OME solution," commented Raanan Tzemach, Vice President of Product and Marketing at Telco Systems. "We are positioning our customers to take full advantage of the benefits of SDN and NFV and efficiently offer a new set of virtualized services with flexible business models based on our VNF-packages."

http://www.telco.com