1. Healthcare

Solution Brief
Intel® Network Builders
Intel® Xeon® Processor E5-4600 v2
Intel® DH8950 PCIe QuickAssist
Accelerator
Intel® 85299 & Intel® XL710
Ethernet Controllers
Hardware Platform
• 2U Quad Socket Appliance
FWA-6512
Creating a Physical to Virtual Bridge with High Performance NFV
enablement
• 2 Network Mezzanine Cards (NMCs) per
CPU
• PCIe Gen 3.0 from CPUs
• Any mix of Dual 40GbE, Quad 10GbE
& Octal GbE NMCs for up to 640 Gbps
connectivity
• Up to 2 Intel® QuickAssist Accelerators
per CPU for encryption
Software Platform
Executive Summary
• High performance switching
aggregated bandwidth for VNFs
Network infrastructures are shifting from physical systems to virtual functions and
this shift requires a new class of network appliances that provide high performance
processing, balanced I/O and hardware or software acceleration. Software Defined
Networking (SDN) and Network Functions Virtualization (NFV) are changing the way
networks and services are provisioned. This new virtualized infrastructure requires a
combination of standard server technology and modular systems that can be configured
to deliver line rate performance and exceptional flexibility.
• Hardware independent VNF network
attachments for seamless network
hardware upgrades and VNF migration
To address these needs, Advantech’s FWA-6512 Series of ultra-high end network
appliances has been designed to deliver the highest packet processing performance
available on Intel architecture by cleverly balancing 640Gbps of I/O across 4 Intel Xeon
Processors in just a 2RU footprint.
• VNF vendor independence
Enabled by 6WIND’s 6WINDGate packet processing software this combined platform
creates a seamless bridge to SDN and NFV rollout by providing not just a significant
increase in throughput and capacity for vendors of non-virtualized physical network
appliances but a next generation platform primed for the transformational abilities of
SDN and NFV.
• High capacity, low latency inter-VNF
communications to future proof service
chaining capabilities
Platform Overview
Advantech’s FWA-6512 is an open
programmable networking appliance
which addresses critical networking
performance challenges in data centers
and telecom cloud networks. The platform
is designed to deliver the highest packet
processing performance available on
Intel architecture by cleverly balancing
640Gbps of I/O and acceleration across
4 Intel Xeon Processors in just a 2RU
footprint.
Fully supported by 6WIND’s 6WINDGate
packet processing software providing
Open vSwitch (OVS) acceleration with
additional fast path protocols to deliver
high performance NFV Infrastructure
(NFVI) on top of intel® DPDK, service
providers can benefit from a rapid product
development framework with bare-metal
performance for NFV applications and
deliver new services quickly.
Advantech and 6WIND have collaborated
to provide a proof-of-concept platform
at IDF 2014 which demonstrates how to
increase performance for applications
built on top of the Intel Data Plane
Development Kit (Intel® DPDK), whether
physical or virtual, while providing a
seamless software migration path from
other Intel Architecture (IA) platforms.
Moreover, the platform offers the widest
choice of Network Mezzanine Cards
(NMCs) with Intel Gigabit, 10GbE and
40GbE Network Interface Controllers
(NICs) and their inherent virtualization
enhancements guarantee optimal
throughput efficiency using either SRIOV or Open vSwitch (OVS) acceleration
techniques, and enhanced hypervisor
support.
To meet increasing security and network
optimization challenges, virtualized
network functions can leverage the
Figure 1: Advantech FWA-6512 ultra-high end network appliance
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FWA-6512’s four PCIex16 slots equipped
with additional offload adapters based on
the Intel® Communications Chipset 8950
with Intel® QuickAssist Technology. This
ensures that enterprises can achieve the
encrypted network performance needed
for a new breed of physical or virtual
appliances.
Ultra High End Network
Appliance
The combined Advantech/ 6WINDGate
platform offers an open Network
Function Virtualization Infrastructure
(NFVI) framework to support NFV. It
demonstrates IPsec running in both a bare
metal architecture (raw performance) and
in a VM with an accelerated Open vSwitch
(OVS). It provides the highest performance
in a 2U form factor using Intel architecture
processor power, Intel QuickAssist offload
and Intel-based NIC density.
The Advantech FWA-6512 shown in
Figure 1 is a 2U network appliance that
integrates four Intel Xeon Processors
E5-4600 v2 and Intel C604 chipset. The
platform supports processors with up
to 135W maximum TDP. It also supports
up to 1TB DDR3 memory and two hot–
swappable 2.5” SATA HDDs or SDDs. The
chassis has six hot-swappable cooling fans
and redundant 1400W AC or 1500W DC
power supplies. The 2U chassis integrates
an optimized quad processor motherboard,
four internal PCIe slots and up to eight
Network Mezzanine Cards (NMCs). With
balanced PCIe IO and acceleration across
all 4 CPU sockets the FWA-6512 yields
bets in class performance by avoiding
excess QPI traffic.
the Advantech FWA-6512 Network
Application Platform. For IDF, Red Hat
Linux is used.
Each of the eight NMCs can support
two 40 GbE interfaces enabling a total
I/O bandwidth of 640 Gbps. NMCs are
available with four or eight port GbE
interfaces, two or four port 10 GbE
interfaces and two port 40 GbE interfaces
including LAN bypass as option (Figure 2).
The 6WIND software works with
standard orchestration solutions
that use OpenStack for NFV and SDN
implementations. The software has also
been demonstrated with the Project
Floodlight OpenFlow controller and other
SDN software. The solution demonstrated
at IDF is of particular interest to Telecom
Operators who have specific functional
and performance requirements for the
virtual networking components of NFVI,
namely:
• High performance switching
aggregated bandwidth for VNFs
• Hardware independent VNF network
attachments for seamless network
hardware upgrades and VNF migration
• High capacity, low latency inter-VNF
communications to future proof
service chaining capabilities
• VNF vendor independence
To meet all these requirements, the
6WINDGate solution for NFVI is designed
around an open, high performance
software switch.
40G NMC
- 2 port
10G NMC
- 2 or 4 port
1G NMC
- 4 or 8 port
Based on a fast path architecture,
6WINDGate transparently accelerates
the operator’s selected software
switch to provide extreme bandwidth
and low-latency to VNFs. 6WINDGate
Figure 2: Advantech Network Mezzanine Cards (NMCs)
Security processing and compression on
the platform can be accelerated by using
up to four PCIe adapters with two Intel
Communications Chipset 8950 devices.
Each adapter will support IPsec up to 86
Gbps, SSL up to 100 Gbps and up to 48
Gbps compression.
Accelerated Software
The 6WIND Network Function
Virtualization Infrastructure (NFVI)
software provides an open networking
platform for the FWA-6512 to support
NFV. The NFVI leverages the 6WINDGate
packet processing software, Open
vSwitch (OVS) and Intel Data Plane
Development Kit (DPDK) to support
Virtual Network Functions (VNFs)
running on multiple operating systems
and delivers performance that is up
to 10x the performance of a pure
Linux implementation. Figure 3 shows
the 6WIND NFVI software running on
Figure 3: COTS Hardware with Accelerated Software for Virtual Infrastructure
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OVS acceleration provides significant
performance improvements without any
modification to OVS or its management
allowing the OVS binary package to
be upgraded to benefit from new OVS
features while maintaining its accelerated
performance.
6WIND’s software switch-based solution
isolates VNFs from real hardware, thus
eliminating driver dependency in VNF
operating systems. This isolation also
allows network hardware changes
in either connection speed, supplier
or function (for example a smart NIC
performing DDoS mitigation) without
VNF changes. It also allows for live
and scheduled migration of VNFs from
one platform to the other without any
hardware NIC adaptations.
Inter-VNF communications with high
capacity and low latency are key
differences between traditional Cloud and
Telecom Operator environments. While
east-west communication exists in Private
and Hybrid Clouds, the performance
characteristics are dramatically different
and thus require a carrier-grade solution.
6WINDGate supports sub-microsecond
low latency with several hundreds of Gbps
throughput of inter-VNF traffic. It does
this without consuming external ports,
impacting available bandwidth on the
existing ports, or incurring PCI Express
contention and latency.
Beyond pure switching capabilities,
6WINDGate will also demonstrate how to
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provide enhanced networking services
such as L3 forwarding, virtual routing,
firewalling and more to extend service
chaining capabilities between VNFs.
Advantech PCIE-3215 with Dual
Intel® Communications Chipset
8950
The Intel® Communications Chipset 8950,
former codename Coleto Creek contains
hardware engines for crypto acceleration
and compression. Intel® QuickAssist
Technology is a key feature of the
chipset and provides an array of security
features which include encryption/
decryption using AES, DES, 3DES or (A)
RC4 algorithms, hashing using , SHA-1/2,
MD5or HMAC algorithms, deflate and
LZS high-speed data compression. Intel®
QuickAssist Technology enables high-
speed, secure data compression, storage
and data loss prevention, supporting a
range of pre-processing services such
as IPsec and Secure Socket Layer (SSL)
acceleration. Processor-intensive tasks
are offloaded to the chipset to relieve the
system, in particular in areas such as SSL
communications where the initialization
and termination of crypto services puts
quite a burden on the processor.
Performance
Advantech’s PCIE-3215 PCIe adapter
with dual Intel® DH8950 chipsets offers
a platform for consistent backwards-
Figure 4: Advantech PCIE-3215 Intel® QuickAssist Acceleration Adapter
compatible API for hardware acceleration
with up to 40 Gbps Compression
Acceleration and up to 100 Gbps Crypto
Acceleration performing 80K RSA 2k-bit
operations per second.
Note: These results provide some guidance
for system architects and are provided for
informational purposes only. Specific products
from Advantech may vary slightly in design and
effect actual performance.
Summary
Figure 5: Block diagram of Advantech PCIE-3215. The low profile version allows
4 adapters to be added to the FWA-6512 providing two DH8950’s per CPU
Ultra high-end performance is achieved
with a combination of the latest Intel
Xeon Processor E5-4600 v2, hardware
acceleration, high speed network
interfaces and software that reaches
line rate performance in virtualized
environments. The solution provides an
open networking platform for the NFV
Infrastructure (NFVI) based on virtual
switch acceleration and networking data
plane technology foundation to develop
faster high performance VNFs.
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For more information about 6WIND and Advantech solutions
visit www.6WIND.com and www.advantech.com/nc
Solution Provided By:
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