Intel powers NFV technologies to meet Rising NetworkTraffic Demands
The rapid growth of customer data traffic demands new solutions for service providers. But traditional data center networks weren’t designed to handle the new traffic flow. Further, if additional services such as routing, firewalling, or virtual-private-network (VPN) tunneling are required, additional paths must inject into the network. So most solution providers have taken to run much oftheir traffic through virtual machines (VMs). This transition to virtualized data centers has changed the structureof the traffic and communication paradigms.
The Solution and Experts
Software-defined networking (SDN) and network function virtualization (NFV) technologies have helped to roll out end-to-end provisioning of network services that support customer demands andincrease revenue faster and a much lower cost.Migrating from static hardware networking to dynamic SDN networking, service providers free up capital and equipment, avoid vendor lock-in, and provide faster and more secure services to customers. To work out this solution, Telefónica* partnered with Brocade*, Intel?, and Red Hat* to demonstrate that a virtualized environment can deliver the performance a telecom provider demands— without requiring significant customization, commitment to an inflexible proprietary solution, or long deployment cycles. Streamlining Traffic Flow and Storage Using the globally-applicable European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI) reference architecture as a starting point, Brocade*, HPE, and Intel developed industry-leading NFV solutions for service providers and enterprises that want to build agility and automation into their networks.
Changing the economics of networking and optimizing the data center, the Brocade* and HPE solutions offer carrier-class performance and reliability that telcos, cloud service providers and enterprises can use for connectivity between hybrid clouds, private clouds and services for in-cloud networks.
The Intel Advantage
Intel developed an architecture platform based on the ETSI standards for NFV in an effort to accelerate development of commercial hardware and software platforms. The Intel Open Network Platform (ONP)provides a reference architecture that redefines network architectures by decoupling the network functions from the hardware itself. This provides the Network Function Virtualization Infrastructure (NFVI) necessary to virtualize functions.
With ONP, companies in telecom carrier networks, enterprise environments, and cloud data centers can build solutions more easily, using an open source software stack running on commercial, off the shelf servers. With the ONP reference architecture, solution providers can plan, evaluate, and benchmark designs in advance of NFV deployments.
Partners in Excellent Network Solutions
Implemented as Virtual NetworkFunctions (VNFs) in Virtual CustomerPremise Equipment (vCPE) and VirtualCloud Equipment (vCE) environments,the solution components include a plethora of Brocade products – a 5600 vRouter, vRouters , SDN Controller (BSC), a vADC (ApplicationDelivery Controller) that works within cloudenvironments and easily integratesinto an application stack, and VDX* switches and VCS Fabric technology for the VNFiphysical layer that are the foundation forhigh-performance connectivity inEthernet fabric, storage and IP network.
These solutions allow Telefónica, as a network operator, to aggressively change their perspective regarding what’s possible with software-driven networking and accelerate the adoption and deployment of revolutionary virtualization technologies.
Conclusion
For connectivity between hybrid clouds, private clouds, and services for in-cloudnetworks, the Brocade and HPE solutions offer carrier-class performance andreliability for telcos, cloud service providers, and enterprises. By enabling intra-datacenter traffic to travel directly from a source to its destination, traffic they help to avoidexpensive higher layers of the network in situations where routing, firewalling, andVPN connectivity is required. Transitioning from hardware networking to SDNnetworking, service providers free up capital and equipment, avoid vendor lock-in,and provide better customer service, to a more demanding, increasingly complex market.