Recent trends in virtual network functions acceleration for carrier clouds

Abstract

In this keynote we will present the latest trends in deploying Virtual Network Functions (VNF) for Carrier Networks. The discussion will address the challenges that operators face and their different approaches when virtualizing mobile and fixed networking applications, including EPG, BNG and many others. In addition we will highlight the latest developments in VNF acceleration, including potential acceleration targets and their locations in the Carrier Datacenter. And in conclusion explore the needs of a common acceleration abstraction and the standardization/industry efforts to achieve that goal, including Open Compute Project, Open Data Plane Project, OpenFlow and OpenFlow 2.0, ETSI and OPNFV.

OpenFunction: Data Plane Abstraction for Software-Defined Middleboxes

“…In FPGA box, both OpenFunction script and pseudo language are translated to the special C/C++ code: the specification is translated to the top level block (composed by a call graph among low level blocks), while each pseudo language based action definition is translated to a low level block. The translation of data plane IPSEC specification (Algorithm 1) as shown in Algorithm 6, requires (1) defining the inter-link between functional actions (i.e., [5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15][16][17][18][19][20]; and (2) using direct function calls to represent actions (e.g., . Note that in FPGA platform, we implement all parameters as action attributes, which are controlled by its corresponding CP process.…”

“…The functions and requirements of packet processing are significantly different from those of general computing. Such differences warrant a wide variety of specialized hardware acceleration technologies such as ASIC chips and Network Processing Units (NPU), which typically have a 10-50 times performance improvement over commodity server based solutions [6]. This partially explains that market has been in favor of the closed-but-fast model, which uses proprietary hardware platform with fast packet processing capability, over the open-but-slow model, which uses commodity servers with slow packet processing capability.…”