Netronome is the leading developer of flow processors.  Their solutions include flow processing silicon, software, tools and acceleration platforms that scale from 1 to 200 Gbps. They are used by networking equipment OEMs worldwide in carrier-grade and enterprise-class communications products that require deep packet inspection, flow analysis, content processing, virtualization and security.

With SDN and OpenFlow discussions heating up in virtualization and cloud markets, I decided to reach out to the company to find out what they were doing in this space.  And I was fortunate to have the opportunity to speak with Jarrod Siket, SVP and GM of marketing at Netronome.

VMblog:  Why are network flow processors imperative to enterprise and carrier networks?

Jarrod Siket:  Flow processing is pervasive in enterprise and carrier network designs. Networking and communications equipment are all becoming more intelligent, be it cyber security applications or new trends in software defined networking and OpenFlow, cloud computing and virtualization. This new level of intelligence is anchored in the ability to process the traffic statefully across many packets and to dynamically keep pace with the changes in protocols and threats for millions of simultaneous flows, without negatively impacting performance at 40 and 100 Gbps. As a result, a new class of processor is required: a flow processor.

VMblog:  What benefits will customers receive from the NFP-6xxx?

Siket:  The NFP-6xxx represents the sixth generation of flow processors, and the most recent product line following the NFP-32xx family. Netronome’s NFPs are the only purpose-built silicon to provide line rate network processing for 1, 10, 40, 100, 200 and 400 Gbps designs that also includes fully programmable hardware support for L2-L3 and L4-L7 processing with integrated security and DPI processing. The NFP-6xxx in particular features 120 flow processing cores and 96 packet processing cores, and over 100 other hardware accelerators, making it ideally suited for intelligent network applications such as cyber security and software defined networking.

VMblog:  In what ways have Netronome and Intel collaborated to provide users with top-tier flow processors?

Siket:  Netronome’s first product line, the NFP-32xx, was derived from the market-leading Intel IXP product line of network processors. Netronome started its design with the world’s most popular processor architecture for networking and security designs, and extended upon it. In our second product line, the NFP-6xxx family will be the first and only device of this class to be available in 22nm, manufactured for Netronome by Intel.

VMblog:  What networking applications is the NFP-6xxx designed for?

Siket:  Netronome’s NFPs target applications that range from 1-400Gbps and require advanced processing beyond simple forwarding, such as software defined networking and OpenFlow. Additionally, it is designed for an array of cyber security applications such as NGFW, IPS, forensics, DLP; and intelligent infrastructure designs in mobile wireless and virtualization in the data center.

VMblog:  Netronome recently announced that it has expanded its presence in New England. How will this affect the company’s future growth?

Siket:  We have been fortunate that we’ve tripled our designs wins and increased revenue by more than 50 percent in each of the past two years since our first products hit the market in mid-2010. With far more opportunities in front of us, our early success has allowed us to make investments in several areas, including the engineering teams designing our new product lines, and the necessary sales, marketing and support resources that are required to realize our full potential. To that end, we have experienced considerable growth in the Boston area and in our corporate headquarters in Santa Clara.

VMblog:  What can we expect to see from Netronome in the coming months?

Siket:  Over the next two quarters we expect a number of items to be announced. The first are a series of announcements around our hardware, software and design services ecosystem for the recently announced NFP-6xxx. All of the tier one partners that supported us for the NFP-32xx will be participating again, and we expect several new and exciting companies to join us as well. Second, we’ll be announcing a number of exciting use cases and benchmarks, with supporting hardware and software reference designs for the NFP-6xxx, including cyber security, software defined networking, and other leading applications.

Thanks again to Jarrod Siket, SVP and GM of marketing at Netronome for taking time out to speak with VMblog.