We got together with Intel and Radware over 6 months ago with the idea of not only simplifying NFV deployments, but also pushing the envelope on NFV performance and cloud computing. The end result was spinning-up a 225 Gbps Radware Alteon ADC within minutes using a GUI, CLI, or REST API.
Cisco's Data Center NFV Platform Software - Cloud Services Platform 2100
The CSP 2100 is a turn-key NFV and Open x86 KVM software platform for both service provider and enterprise environments. The CSP 2100 is an NFV platform without all the complexities and overhead that come with Openstack deployments. You can start with ONLY one host, then add additional hosts as needed to scale-out.
The CSP 2100 bridges network, server, and security teams by offering several ways to manage and operate the platform. You can manage the platform using a GUI, CLI, REST API, and/or Netconf using Cisco's Network Services Orchestrator (NSO).
The CSP 2100 is designed for a variety of use cases in the cloud, data center, point-of-presence (POP), central office (CO), co-location (COLO), carrier-neutral facility (CNF), WAN aggregation, DMZ and extranet, core network, and server farm environments.
Intel Architecture, Software, and Hardware
The Intel? Xeon? E5-2600 v3 product family offers the following innovative features in the 22-nanometer (nm) Intel process technology node:
The Intel Ethernet Controller XL710 delivers a variety of features, including:
Intel DPDK offers the following features:
Radware Network Functions Virtualization
The Radware Alteon and DefensePro virtual appliances decouple network functions from dedicated underlying hardware, allowing next-generation services on the CSP 2100. Delivering a scalable, ultra-high capacity of up to 225 Gbps per instance (Layer 4) and up to 1 Tbps per cluster, the Alteon virtual appliance for NFV:
A total of 225 Gbps was achieved on a CSP 2100 2RU form-factor solution, which included the following:
The Alteon and DefensePro VNFs provide highly efficient resource utilization on open-source hypervisors by redesigning the virtualization approach to incorporate new technologies that increase overall performance:
These capabilities enable the Alteon virtual appliance for NFV to reach the industry's best performance of up to 225 Gbps on the CSP 2100.
https://youtu.be/O_fswKA_uz8
Many thanks to Travis Volk and Yaron Antebi of Radware, Ilango Ganga and Jalal Sadreameli of Intel, and Michael Jackson, Ken Hook, and Jim French of Cisco for making this happen.
Related Radware Blog by Travis Volk
Joint White Paper