Tilera Launches Open Virtual Switch Solution (OVS) to Accelerate NFV and SDN

Tilera Corporation, the leader in high-performance, power-efficient computing, today announced the availability of TILE-OVS, an optimized Open vSwitch (OVS) offload solution for network functions virtualization (NFV) deployments in data center and telco networks. Powered by Tilera's TILE-Gx manycore processors and deployed in a PCI Express form factor, the solution delivers up to 80Gbps of OVS processing with additional headroom to spare for many other sophisticated networking applications such as deep packet inspection (DPI), network analytics and cyber security processing.

In software defined networking (SDN) and NFV paradigms, networking functions are deployed as virtual machines on x86 servers rather than running on purpose-built appliances. However, due to the computational complexity of networking functions, virtual switching, and the ever-increasing rate of IP traffic, these workloads consume a significant portion of the x86 server's compute capabilities. With TILE-OVS, high-throughput networking, switching, and security functions are handled by TILE-Gx processors with direct coupling to the Ethernet I/O, dramatically offloading the x86 server.

"Offloading Open vSwitch from x86 host CPUs provides several benefits for NFV," said Matthew Mattina, CTO, Tilera Corporation. "OVS is computationally demanding on x86 machines, especially when dealing with high throughput, high packet rates, and tunneling protocols like NVGRE that leave fewer cycles to run the desired virtual functions. By offloading OVS to a Tilera data-plane adapter, our customers are able to free up more cycles for host-side applications resulting in NFV capable servers that are power and cost efficient, and support OpenFlow controllers."

"At ZTE, we create solutions to address the needs of our customers deploying next-generation solutions using NFV," said Xiong Xiankui, ZTE Central Research Institute chief engineer. "The TILE-Gx processors from Tilera deliver the right combination of features, performance-per-watt and programmability to create application offload solutions such as Open vSwitch and other compute-intensive networking offloads."
The TILEncore-Gx Intelligent Application Adapters incorporate more than enough computing power for OVS at 20 to 80Gbps, with the headroom to perform other NFV data plane offloads such as deep packet inspection (DPI) or intrusion detection and intrusion prevention (IDS/IPS) functions. Tilera's high performance PCIe interface with SR-IOV (single root-IO virtualization) enables peak data transfer rates between the host and TILEncore-Gx adapter. The OVS solution leverages open source software and Tilera's Multicore Development Environment (MDE) software tool suite with a standards-based Linux and C/C++ programming environment and scales with full software compatibility across the entire family of TILEncore-Gx adapters.

Tilera will demonstrate its TILE-OVS capabilities at RSA 2014 in San Francisco at the Moscone Convention Center, February 24-27, 2014 in South Expo booth #2320.