Silicom Showcases FPGA SmartNIC Acceleration Cards for O-RAN Apps at MWC Barcelona 2022
Silicom specifically designed the Silicom FPGA SmartNIC N6011 as a 5G O-RAN platform using open Intel® technologies. It is custom designed to meet the real-time processing needs of 5G DUs and can be configured for a wide range of network deployments.
Accelerate NFVi Workloads For 5G Deployments Webinar: Watch On-Demand Now
The recently-held “Accelerate NFVi Workloads For 5G Deployments” webinar highlights the collaboration between Juniper Networks, HCL Technologies, and Intel® to solve network performance challenges and allow Contrail users to experience increased overall server performance and utilization for vRouter-based infrastructures in telecommunications environments.
Hardware Acceleration and Segment Routing over IPv6 (SRv6) help CoSPs Optimize and Simplify their Networks
Communications service providers (CoSPs) are seeking ways to differentiate themselves and to enhance their customers’ experiences in the fast-evolving telecommunication (telco) market—all while keeping costs under control. Exponential traffic growth and constant pressure to add more services and subscribers can tax legacy infrastructure, forcing CoSPs to constantly optimize and simplify their networks. Many CoSPs have deployed network functions virtualization (NFV) in an effort to optimize their networks. However, an influx of new subscribers and growing data loads consume a growing number of CPU cycles simply to route traffic, which leaves fewer compute resources to run actual containerized network functions (CNFs) and virtualized network functions (VNFs) that CoSPs want to support. The end result: suboptimal performance and the need for more hosts. To help overcome these challenges, CoSPs are turning to technologies such as hardware acceleration and segment routing over IPv6 (SRv6). SRv6 helps address the requirements of NFV and software-defined networking (SDN) architecture. It provides a unified solution for networking programmability, service function chaining (SFC), protocol simplification, traffic engineering, and mobile and fixed network convergence. An SRv6 solution from Intel and HCL overcomes network bottlenecks and achieves up to 3x savings in processor cores by offloading low-level SRv6 processing to the Intel® FPGA Programmable Acceleration Card (Intel® FPGA PAC) N3000. The card is reprogrammable and delivers the flexibility that CoSPs need to support new networking workloads. HCL has built an optimized architecture that enhances network throughput and predictability while reducing latency by taking advantage of the plugin-based framework of vector packet processing (VPP) and by offloading CPU-intensive operations to the Intel FPGA PAC N3000. The solution frees up CPU cores by offloading CPU-intensive segment-routing functions to the Intel FPGA PAC N3000, which means that four CPU cores in the hardware-assisted solution can deliver comparable performance to 12 cores running a software-based SRv6. That’s a 3x savings in CPU cores as shown in the graphic below. 1 Freed CPU cores and cycles can be dedicated to vital CNF workloads running on that networking infrastructure instead of networking infrastructure. The solution’s small footprint can help reduce power and cooling costs. It is available for both VNF-based environments through VPP support and CNF-based environments (and Kubernetes) through Contiv-VPP support. The HCL solution based on the Intel FPGA PAC N3000 supports the following SRv6 endpoint behaviors, all of which enable SFC, L2VPN, and L3VPN: Static proxy (End.AS) Dynamic proxy (End.AD) Decapsulation and cross-connect (End.DX) Decapsulation and specific table lookup (End.DT) For more technical details, see the new Solution Brief titled “Accelerate SRv6 Processing.” (Click on the link to download the Solution Brief.) Notices and Disclaimers 1 Based on HCL testing on January 21, 2020. Test environment configuration: Intel® Xeon® Platinum 8180M processor (2.50 GHz, 56 cores), CentOS 7.6, kernel 3.10.957, Contiv-VPP v3.3.2.1 (VPP 19.08), Data Plane Development Kit (DPDK) v19.05, Ixia Network Tester, Intel FPGA PAC N3000, with up to four virtual machines (VMs) running L3 Forwarding; test topology: traffic generator connected back-to-back to the server host through optical cables. QSFP28 100 Gb port is broken out into 4 x 25 Gb; only two of them are used. For more information about testing, contact HCL. Performance results are based on testing as January 21, 2020, and may not reflect all publicly available security updates. Software and workloads used in performance tests may have been optimized for performance only on Intel microprocessors. Performance tests, such as SYSmark and MobileMark, are measured using specific computer systems, components, software, operations and functions. Any change to any of those factors may cause the results to vary. You should consult other information and performance tests to assist you in fully evaluating your contemplated purchases, including the performance of that product when combined with other products. For more complete information visit intel.com/benchmarks. Intel technologies’ features and benefits depend on system configuration and may require enabled hardware, software or service activation. Performance varies depending on system configuration. No product or component can be absolutely secure. Intel’s compilers may or may not optimize to the same degree for non-Intel microprocessors for optimizations that are not unique to Intel microprocessors. These optimizations include SSE2, SSE3, and SSSE3 instruction sets and other optimizations. Intel does not guarantee the availability, functionality, or effectiveness of any optimization on microprocessors not manufactured by Intel. Microprocessor-dependent optimizations in this product are intended for use with Intel microprocessors. Certain optimizations not specific to Intel microarchitecture are reserved for Intel microprocessors. Please refer to the applicable product User and Reference Guides for more information regarding the specific instruction sets covered by this notice. Statements in this document that refer to future plans or expectations are forward-looking statements. These statements are based on current expectations and involve many risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those expressed or implied in such statements. For more information on the factors that could cause actual results to differ materially, see our most recent earnings release and SEC filings at intel.com. Cost reduction scenarios described are intended as examples of how a given Intel- based product, in the specified circumstances and configurations, may affect future costs and provide cost savings. Circumstances will vary. Intel does not guarantee any costs or cost reduction. Intel does not control or audit third-party data. You should review this content, consult other sources, and confirm whether referenced data are accurate. © Intel Corporation. Intel, the Intel logo, and other Intel marks are trademarks of Intel Corporation or its subsidiaries. Other names and brands may be claimed as the property of others.
