Netronome, a leading provider of high-performance intelligent networking
solutions, today announced its Agilio Server Networking Platform, the
first intelligent, software and hardware-based solution designed to
completely and transparently offload server-based networking data paths,
such as open virtual switch (OVS), Juniper Networks Contrail vRouter,
and Linux firewall. The Agilio platform enables businesses of all sizes
to dramatically increase the efficiency of their data center compute
infrastructure, delivering up to 5X higher throughput while reducing CPU
requirements by up to 80 percent compared to traditional NICs and
server-based networking implemented in software. Restoring valuable
compute resources reduces customer total cost of ownership (TCO) by
delivering unmatched price/performance for compute and service node
applications to service provider and enterprise cloud networks, while
preserving standard cloud configuration and automation tools.
Modern data center applications are causing rapid sprawl of virtual
machines, while deployment of large numbers of containers is on the
horizon. To support such applications, networking features such as
virtualization, security, load balancing and telemetry are quickly
evolving in server-based networking solutions such as virtual switches,
virtual routers, or Linux firewalls that use connection tracking.
Server-based networking also has evolved as the most widely deployed
form of software-defined networking (SDN) and is used for critical
functions such as zero-trust security using micro-segmentation, virtual
network functions (VNFs) and application-based analytics. However, such
functions are compute-intensive and drastically impact the efficiency of
the data center infrastructure, especially as networking bandwidth
reaches 10Gb/s and higher, a norm in modern data centers. The Agilio
solution can accelerate such server-based networking functions,
delivering 20X the price/performance of the nearest competitor.
“While server-based networking is providing higher efficiency and scale
for the world’s largest data centers, the need for SDN and network
functions virtualization (NFV) is accelerating the demand for increased
performance across the broad spectrum of cloud-based data centers,” said
Niel Viljoen, co-founder and CEO of Netronome. “The purpose-built Agilio
platform uniquely addresses a critical inflection point in the industry
caused by rapid software innovations in server-based networking on one
side, and the burgeoning cost of compute on the other, resulting in the
rise of heterogeneous computing.”
Unmatched Price/Performance in Server-based Networking
Price-for-Performance
Flow and tunnel processing at scale are the underpinnings of
server-based networking. Agilio CX intelligent server adapters (ISAs)
are based on a unique flow processing silicon (NFP-4000) and software
architecture (Agilio Software). The Agilio CX ISAs work in compliance
with standard networking software in commercial off-the-shelf (COTS)
servers. The Agilio ISAs use onboard memory to support up to two million
security policies, and deliver 28Mpps of throughput using hardware-based
acceleration. This amounts to 8X more security policies at 5X higher
throughput while consuming one-tenth the compute resources required to
deliver scalable server-based networking functions.
Timely Hardware Feature Rollouts Leverage Rapid Innovation in Software
The Agilio solution is truly software-defined and can therefore evolve
rapidly, in lockstep with innovations from the open source networking
software community, without requiring a hardware refresh. The offload of
server-based networking functions to the Agilio CX hardware is
implemented transparently, enabling seamless configuration using popular
cloud management tools such as OpenStack, allowing for scalable cloud
deployments. Rapid innovation now becomes feasible with the benefits of
hardware acceleration, significantly improving compute efficiency and
performance while maintaining operator flexibility and control.
Product Availability
The Agilio server-based networking solutions include:
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Production-ready Agilio Software currently supports OVS v2.3 and v2.4,
with support for OVS v2.5, Linux Firewall, and the Juniper Networks
Contrail vRouter expected during the first half of 2016. The Agilio
host software package is open sourced, has been up-streamed to
relevant Linux repositories and is also available at https://github.com/Netronome/nfp-drv-kmods
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The Agilio CX family of intelligent server adapters includes standard
PCIe Gen3 low-profile adapter cards for customer deployments. 10 and
40GbE configurations of the intelligent server adapters are in
production now, with additional 25, 40 and 50GbE configurations
expected to sample during the middle of 2016