Sandvine NFV Reaches 1.1 Tbps Throughput w/10 RU of Servers

Sandvine announced that "NFV Now a Reality for Operators of Any Size 

.. the Sandvine Policy Traffic Switch (PTS) Virtual Series has established a new Network Functions Virtualization (NFV) performance benchmark by achieving 1.1 Tbps of throughput performance.

.. The test conducted by Sandvine utilized a Dell™ PowerEdge™ M1000e Blade Enclosure, 14 Dell™ PowerEdge™ M630 Blade Servers, Intel® Xeon® processors E5 v3, Intel® Ethernet Converged Network Adapters X540 and X710, the Data Plane Development Kit (DPDK) providing exceptional packet processing performance, and the Intel® Open Network Platform Reference Architecture (Intel® ONP)". 

Related posts:

• Sandvine States 155 Gbps NFV Performance (Beats Procera by 5 Gbps) - here. 
• [Infonetics]: Gradual Transition to NFV-Based DPI; Allot and Sandvine Lead the Market  - here.

".. the 1.1 Tbps benchmark was achieved using a traffic mix that uses various packet sizes and flow-types which is representative of real-world network conditions. Additionally, each Dell PowerEdge M630 Blade Server utilized only one of its dual sockets, with the Intel® Xeon processor utilizing approximately 60% of its processing capability. This extra compute room ensures that it is possible for operators to implement the same advanced traffic measurements and intelligent broadband use cases that they have previously done on purpose built hardware.

See "Sandvine Virtual Series Achieves 1.1 Tbps of NFV Performance" - here.

Sandvine States 155 Gbps NFV Performance (Beats Procera by 5 Gbps)

A post to Sandvine's blog by Don Bowman [pictured], the company's CTO, provides the results of a performance test to the vitrulaized version of its Policy Traffic Switch (see "Sandvine: 'leading edge CSPs around the world are currently working with Sandvine on virtualization pilot projects'"- here).

"Our Policy Traffic Switch (PTS) Virtual Series represents a particularly significant investment, as the PTS is the very visible, very physical hardware that many people picture when they think of Sandvine.

We are happy to report that our investments are paying off: in our latest performance testing, the PTS Virtual Series reached 155 Gbps (96.8% of a theoretical maximum of the 160 Gbps line rate). Importantly, this performance was achieved while the PTS Virtual Series dealt with real-world demands: using representative traffic mixes and requiring subscriber state awareness.

.. To test the PTS Virtual Series, we used a COTS server provided by Dell (Dell R730x, Dual Intel Xeon E5-2699 v3 (Haswell) processors, Cores 36/72 vCPUs, 128GB DDR3 ECC memory with 16x 10GbE and 4x 40GbE) and configured to achieve maximum performance based on readily available hardware components"

A month ago Procera announced that it has "..optimized PacketLogic/VTM virtualized software solution to demonstrate over 150Gbps running on Intel® Xeon® Processor E5 v3 Family-based commercial-off-the-shelf (COTS) platforms" (here)

See "The PTS Virtual Series: Virtualized Performance in the Real World" - here.

Artesyn Announced High-density Video Acceleration PCI Cards

 

SharpStreamer™ PCIE-7207

Artesyn Embedded Technologies announced the "SharpStreamer™ add-on acceleration card that enables content owners, broadcasters and service provider networks to speed the deployment of high density video transcoding and multiscreen delivery.

..Artesyn is targeting the highest H.264/AVC and H.265/HEVC transcoding density in the smallest footprint. An Artesyn SharpStreamer card is capable of up to 48 streams of 1080p H.264 transcodes, or 4 streams of 1080p H.265/HEVC transcodes. It uses four Intel® Core™ i7-4650U Processors at 1.7 GHz with Intel® HD graphics 5000 Graphics supported by 8 GB memory per processor subsystem in a three-quarter length PCI Express card footprint.

..As with other add-on acceleration cards in the Artesyn portfolio, SharpStreamer is designed for compatibility with servers from Dell and HP.

The SharpStreamer is equipped with a software development kit comprised of the Intel® Media SDK with Intel® HD Graphics' hardware acceleration, monitoring and processor subsystem operating system and management tools for easy integration with server host processing environments"

See "New Artesyn Embedded Technologies Add-on Acceleration Card Enables High Density Video Processing in Standard Servers and Cloud Networks" - here.

PeerApp and Sandvine Demo NFV-based Content Caching (w/Sandvine Steering)

PeerApp announced it will "demonstrate the industry's first virtualized content caching solution in cooperation with intelligent broadband solutions provider Sandvine and Dell at the Intel Developer Forum (IDF) .. PeerApp and Sandvine's solutions are already integrated at dozens of operators globally using traditional deployment models [see "Sandvine: 40 Joint Deployments with PeerApp, Mobixell and Netsweeper" - here]

This demonstration shows a virtualized content caching solution using PeerApp's UltraBand caching engine in conjunction with a patented application-specific Divert solution enabled by the Sandvine Policy Engine, both running on virtual machines hosted on Dell hardware. 

Related post - "Sandvine CEO Bullish on IBM Relations; SDN and NFV will Take Time" - here.

Network Functions Virtualization (NFV) decouples network functions, such as caching, from hardware, using standard IT virtualization technologies. NFV enables cable, broadband and mobile service providers to build dynamic, virtualized networks with application and content awareness so they can quickly deliver new and innovative services, lower capital and operational costs, and increase flexibility and agility to respond to market demands. PeerApp's content delivery solution is one of the only standards-based solutions available today that supports the exploding popularity of over-the-top (OTT) Internet content with improved economics, flexibility and agility, as well as with the Quality of Experience (QoE) subscribers expect". 

Related post "Sandvine:'leading edge CSPs around the world are currently working with Sandvine on virtualization pilot projects'" - here.

See "PeerApp and Sandvine to Demonstrate the Industry's First Virtualized Content Caching Solution at IDF San Francisco 2014" - here.

Sandvine CEO Bullish on IBM Relations; SDN and NFV will Take Time

Sandvine published its 2013 annual report. In the Letter to the Shareholder, Dave Caputo [pictured], Sandvine CEO, says: "In late 2012, we partnered with IBM [here and here] as a new reseller of our solutions; I am pleased that Sandvine’s products are now fully productized within the IBM partner ecosystem. This joint relationship is encouraging and we expect to announce further wins in 2014".

See IBM's document "Dynamic Policy Management for Mobile and Fixed Networks" - here.

"During 2013, we continued to demonstrate our readiness and commitment towards Software Defined Networking (SDN) and Network Functions Virtualization (NFV), by being the first vendor to demonstrate a completely virtualized network policy control solution. 

We have set up initial solution partnerships with Juniper Networks for SDN [see "Juniper's View on Sandvine SDN/NFV Integration" - here] and Dell for NFV [see "Sandvine: 'leading edge CSPs around the world are currently working with Sandvine on virtualization pilot projects'" - here], and have announced some initial customer successes. SDN and NFV represent architectural shifts for our customers, so we do not expect material revenue from solutions delivered in this manner for a few years, but it is important to establish our leadership now".

Sandvine: "leading edge CSPs around the world are currently working with Sandvine on virtualization pilot projects"

Procera (here) and Allot Communications (here) are not alone in the DPI NFV promise (see also "[Lee Doyle]: "'In the future, we will see virtualized DPI functions'" - here), as Sandvine joins the game.

Don Bowman [pictured], Sandvine's Co-Founder and CTO, presents in post to the company's blog Sandvine and DELL collaboration on SDN and NFV.  Don explains that this has been easy move for Sandvine, due to the decision to use Intel's x86 architecture back in 2001. At that time, other DPI vendors were using propitiatory network processors.

"[SDN and NFV] Standards are still under development, but a number of leading edge CSPs around the world are currently working with Sandvine on virtualization pilot projects in order to help usher in the next generation of networking, and tackle the challenges that come with the introduction of any new architecture.

As part of these pilot projects, Sandvine and Dell OEM Solutions are collaborating on a SDN & NFV solution that combines Sandvine’s industry leading network policy control solution, and its flexibility to apply subscriber-centric services, with Dell’s high performance PowerEdge™ blade server platform .. 

".. When Sandvine started in 2001, it made the decision to design and build exclusively on the Intel x86 processor architecture. In doing so, Sandvine has been able to spend over a decade optimizing our software solutions so that they are the best performing network policy control solution on the market, whether a CSP chooses to run it on our purpose built hardware, or Dell’s industry leading, high-performance hardware.

Additionally, our decision to run on x86 based infrastructure made it incredibly easy to virtualize our products. In fact, much of our current product development and testing is done in a virtualized environment. So, it is an easy transition to migrate Sandvine software and solutions onto Dell’s x86 based hardware platform".

See "Sandvine and Dell collaborate on a virtualized SDN architecture" - here.

[F&S]: MSSP Market to Reach $15.6B in 2016

A new research by Martha Vazquez (pictured), Industry Analyst, Frost & Sullivan concludes that "Enterprises are becoming increasingly exposed to organized cyber crime rings and for many businesses, the complexity of threats have compelled them to turn to managed security service providers (MSSPs). These types of external service providers enable organizations to maintain strong security while improving business efficiencies and minimizing costs".

"Although there are many benefits, MSSP vendors are typically challenged when trying to demonstrate the possible savings accrued through working with a trusted MSSP. MSSPs have to educate end users about the advantages of outsourcing security. In response to the escalating demand for broader platform support and more flexibility, MSSPs should also provide a wide range of new security technologies and enhanced security portfolios"

"..Analysis from Frost & Sullivan , Analysis of the Global Managed Security Service Providers Market, finds that the market earned revenues of $6.66 billion in 2011 and estimates this to reach $15.63 billion in 2016 .. The Frost & Sullivan study covers local, regional and global MSSPs such as Nuspire, IBM, Verizon, Dell Secureworks, Solutionary, BT Global Services, Deutche Telecom, MegaPath, and Windstream (formerly PAETEC)”.

See "Rising Complexity of Cyber Crimes Puts MSSPs under the Spotlight, Finds Frost & Sullivan" - here.

Dell and EdgeCast to Offer Carrier CDN

 
Dell announced ".. Dell Deliver, its first-ever Content Delivery Platform (CDP) that allows network providers to sell Content Delivery Network (CDN) services to the enterprise as well as manage the on-demand delivery of any video to any screen quickly, efficiently and at low cost. Offering network operators a new, easier path to CDN ownership, Dell Deliver is built on Dell PowerEdge 12th generation servers and software from EdgeCast Networks and Elemental Technologies".

"..Dell Deliver is available with a number of deployment models and built with software from EdgeCast Networks, the CDN that delivers a substantial portion of the world’s Internet traffic on behalf of more than 4,000 content providers and Elemental Technologies, a supplier of video processing solutions for multiscreen content delivery. Dell Deliver allows network operators to launch their own CDN quickly and affordably, and allows them to concurrently offer a valuable new service to their enterprise customers and support their own video delivery initiatives".

Will it include transparent caching as well? see -  "PeerApp and EdgeCast Offer Operators Joint CDN/Caching Solution" - here.
 

Competition:

• Limelight Launched Managed CDN Platform, with Cache - here
• EdgeCast Announced "Licensed CDN"; Deployed by Pacnet and AT&T(?) - here
• Akamai to Offer Products for Operator's Own Content Delivery - here

See "Dell Teams Up with EdgeCast Networks and Elemental Technologies to Make Content Production and Delivery Networks More Attainable for Service Providers" - here.