ARM is showcasing its first virtualisation reference platform based on its own technology, as it looks to bolster the NFV sector.
The platform adheres to Open Platform for Network Functions Virtualisation (OPNFV) standards and is in collaboration with software company Enea. It is built on Linux and supports OpenStack, OpenDaylight, Open vSwitch, KVM and OpenDataPlane. The platform uses a 64-bit ARM-based system on chip.
ARM said it wanted to build an application ready platform that would support flexibility, automation and scalability. The new platform, which is being shown off at this week’s NFV World Congress, will be rolled into Linux’s OPNFV project, which will embark on performance and reliability tests to improve it.
Charlene Marini, Vice-President of Embedded Marketing, ARM, said: “This is a tremendous leap forward in delivering the NFV vision across a wide range of highly-integrated, workload-optimized ARM-based networking SoCs, available via the common OpenDataPlane (ODP) interface layer. This application-ready platform is also the enabling layer for the Intelligent Flexible Cloud framework that will transform network infrastructure over the next decade.”
Heather Kirksey, Director, OPNFV, added: “OPNFV is focused on fostering and strengthening a strong open ecosystem with a wide variety of hardware architectures and environments. We are excited for initiatives like the ARM-based reference platform for the OPNFV integration project as it provides more choices for users.”
In March, Intel and Oracle demonstrated carrier-grade NFV at processor level, which the companies said would help operators deploy virtualisation without performance being marred.
The demonstration used Intel’s Open Network Platform based on OpenStack infrastructure, and orchestration software from Oracle.
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