Telefónica and Brocade have partnered to establish new benchmarks for the deployment and performance of Network Functions Virtualisation (NFV) solutions. Tests’ consistent results have provided clear evidence that will fundamentally alter the performance range service providers can expect from virtualised, software-based networking infrastructure.
The establishment of NFV benchmarks is part of a joint effort by both companies within the Telefónica NFV Reference Lab framework.
“The promise of NFV is rapid service creation and highly elastic scalability. While virtualization is significant to achieving this agility, it has historically been the fundamental limiter to the kind of performance required for scalability,” said Enrique Algaba, Network Innovation and Virtualisation – Director, Telefónica.
In the tests performed by Telefónica, the Brocade Vyatta 5600 vRouter achieved 80 Gbps on a commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) Intel-based x86 server. Deployed within a Red Hat KVM environment, the Brocade Vyatta 5600 was deployed as a single Virtual Machine (VM) and supported all of the server’s available ports at line rate.
“In less than two hours, we deployed the Brocade Vyatta 5600 vRouter from a memory stick and completed our performance tests in our NFV Reference Lab. These results are allowing us, as network operators, to aggressively change our perspective regarding what is possible with software-driven networking in order to accelerate the adoption and deployment of these revolutionary technologies,” said Francisco-Javier Ramón, Head – Telefónica NFV Reference Lab.
“Intel is committed to bringing Moore’s Law to networking and enabling a broad SDN/NFV ecosystem based on open source and standard solutions,” said John Healy, GM-Software Defined Networking Division, Intel.
“The Brocade Vyatta 5600 vRouter is a great example of performance leadership and innovation developed on Intel Architecture and the Intel data plane development kit. We are excited to work with leaders such as Brocade to advance virtual networking performance and fuel the NFV market with compelling solutions,” added Ramon.
Released in early 2014, the Brocade Vyatta 5600 is the first purpose-built NFV solution to address the demands of the world’s largest service providers. Featuring advanced routing, firewall, and VPN functionality, it is a core component at the network services layer of the Brocade Vyatta platform.
“The Brocade Vyatta 5600 vRouter has removed the performance barrier from the NFV adoption conversation and our focus is now on expanding its capabilities for broadest possible leverage across the service provider network,” said Kelly Herrell, VP and GM – Software Networking, Brocade.
“We continue to accelerate our aggressive investment in modern software to bring high-value technology disruptions across a wide range of networking capabilities,” added Herrell.