Intel unveils SDN-based server, switch platforms

BANGALORE, INDIA: Chip-maker Intel Corporation announced three new reference architectures that will enable IT and telecom industries to accelerate hardware and software development for software-defined networking (SDN) and network function virtualization (NFV).

These reference architectures, aimed for the telecommunications, cloud data center and enterprise data center infrastructure market segments, combine open standards for SDN and NFV with Intel hardware and software.

"SDN and NFV are critical elements of Intel's vision to transform the expensive, complex networks of today to a virtualized, programmable, standards-based architecture running commercial off-the-shelf hardware," said Rose Schooler, vice president of Intel Architecture Group and general manager of Intel's Communications and Storage Infrastructure Group. "Integrating SDN and NFV on standard x86 platforms allows lowering the acquisition and management costs as well as enabling new innovative services never before possible in networking infrastructure."

SDN and NFV are complementary networking technologies poised to transform how networks are designed, deployed and managed across data center and telecom infrastructure environments. By separating control and data planes, SDN allows the network to be programmed and managed externally at much larger and more dynamic scale for better traffic control across the entire datacenter. NFV allows service providers to virtualize and manage networking functions such as firewall, VPN or intrusion detection service as virtual applications running on a high-volume x86-based server.

Many ISVs, OEMs and service providers are building solutions on top of Intel's switch reference architecture, including ATT Foundry, Big Switch Network, Chunghwa Telecom, HP, NEC, NTT Data, Quanta, Super Micro and VMware.

Codenamed 'Seacliff Trail', the Intel Open Network Platform (ONP) Switch Reference Design is based on Intel processors, Intel Ethernet Switch 6700 series and Intel Communications Chipset 89xx series, and is available now.

The design will include Wind River Open Network Software (ONS), an open and customizable network switching software stack using Wind River Linux.

Intel is also executing a project aimed at improving small packet throughput and workload performance that can be achieved on the Open vSwitch using the Intel Data Plane Development Kit (DPDK).

Intel is specifically re-creating the kernel forwarding module (data plane) to take advantage of Intel DPDK library. The Intel DPDK Accelerated Open vSwitch is planned to initially be released with the Intel ONP Server Reference Design in the third quarter of this year.

Intel's Open Network Platform Server Reference Design is a server reference platform, codenamed 'Sunrise Trail', and is based on Intel Xeon processor, Intel 82599 Ethernet Controller and Intel Communications Chipset 89xx series.

The ONP Server Reference Design enables virtual appliance workloads on standard Intel architecture servers using SDN and NFV open standards for datacenter and telecom. Wind River Open Network Software includes an Intel DPDK Accelerated Open vSwitch, fast packet acceleration and deep packet inspection capabilities, as well as support for open SDN standards such as OpenFlow, Open vSwitch and OpenStack. The project is in development now: the first alpha series is slated to be available in the second half of this year.