New
Challenges in the Telecoms Infrastructure Market
6WIND
Value-Proposition for Telecoms Infrastructure Market
Scalable
and Modular Solution
Telecoms
Application
6WINDGate™
Software Suites
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New Challenges in
the Telecoms Infrastructure Market
The development of the new generation of Telecoms
Infrastructure equipment is dramatically changing for several reasons:
| • |
Telecom vendors
want to simplify product development and speed up product time
to market. Standardized HW architecture such as AdvancedTCA®
brings efficient solutions to develop modular & scalable
equipment that can be reused and customized to quickly build
up a range of products. |
| • |
Telecoms Infrastructure
equipment performance requirements for converging fixed and
mobile networks are exponentially growing for the following
main reasons. Firstly, Gigabit transmission technologies are
currently available. Secondly, full secured solutions with real
time packet processing require embedded hardware crypto. Thirdly,
network service is becoming more and more sophisticated. At
last, service differentiation (QoS, filtering, L4-L7 switch,
triple-play traffic) requires deep packet inspection. |
| • |
Network Processor technology has matured and Multi-Core Network
Processors have brought an unrivalled added value in terms
of processing capability versus power consumption, integration,
scalability & simplified programming model that significantly
reduce software development time and equipment Bill of Material.
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| • |
Linux perfectly
matches with the standardisation trend driving the Telecoms
Infrastructure equipment market. Linux has been recognised as
a significant step for software reuse and now Carrier Grade
versions of Linux meet the stringent requirements of Telecoms
Infrastructure equipment in terms of High Availability. |
6WIND Value-Proposition
for Telecoms Infrastructure Market
6WINDGate™ is the missing of piece of standardised solutions
for Telecoms Infrastructure Market
6WINDGate™ solution has been specifically
designed to benefit from the improvements of the Multi-Core technology:
- 6WINDGate™ networking software has been specifically designed
for Multi-Core including, an efficient Fast Path architecture
to make the best use of Multi-Core performance according to the
number of cores, a flexible distribution of Control Plane / Slow
Path / Fast Path over the cores, and a complete synchronization
between these three elements.
- 6WINDGate™ high-level APIs interface HW features such as
crypto-engines or hardware queues for QoS should be available
while generic features are fully portable to provide hardware
independence.
- 6WINDGate™ Multi-Core specific software running under Multi-Core
Execution Environment is fully integrated with the Control Plane
OS to provide a transparent solution for applications and to maximize
reuse of existing software. Such integration hides complexities
for applications.
- 6WINDGate™ Networking software provides a complete and
comprehensive set of L2/L3 networking features, each one optimized
between Fast Path and Slow Path.
- 6WINDGate™ networking software is open for extension to
ease the integration of differentiating and value added features.
6WINDGate™ Key Concepts
Scalable and Modular
Solution
6WINDGate™ is available in three different
versions (6WINDGate™ ADS, EDS and SDS) to better fit with requirements
from telecom equipment manufacturers.
6WINDGate™ scalable software suite to build a complete range
of Telecoms equipment
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6WINDGate™
ADS is targeted for middle range appliances and equipment.
Control Plane and Data Plane are co-localized. For MC architectures,
a SMP Linux kernel with an optimized SMP kernel networking stack
is running on all the cores in order to process many packets
simultaneously. |
| • |
6WINDGate™
EDS is a solution based on a Fast Path architecture. This
Fast Path is implemented as a Linux kernel module between the
Linux networking stack and the interface drivers. So, it does
not require any specific MCEE (Multi-Core Executive Environment).
Compared to a standard Linux architecture, forwarding is performed
at the driver level. Only packets that cannot be processed by
Fast Path are forwarded to the Linux Networking Stack (Slow
Path). 6WINDGate™ EDS architecture relies on Cache Manager
and Fast Path Manager modules to integrate and synchronise Fast
Path processing and Slow Path / Control Plane in a transparent
manner. 6WINDGate EDS™ delivers the best possible performance
in pure Linux environment. |
| • |
6WINDGate™
SDS is targeted for high end equipment. Similarly to 6WINDGate™
EDS, it is also based on a Fast Path architecture but Fast Path
is implemented in the MCEE (Multi-Core Executive Environment).
A certain number of cores are dedicated to Fast Path; Fast Past
modules run in a dedicated execution space outside of Linux
kernel. Forwarding is performed at the Fast Path level. 6WINDGate™
SDS architecture relies on Cache Manager and Fast Path Manager
modules to integrate and synchronise Fast Path processing and
Slow Path / Control Plane in a transparent manner. 6WINDGate™
SDS delivers the highest possible performance MC architectures
can sustain. |
A comparison between 6WINDGate™ profiles
can be found here.
Telecoms Application
6WINDGate™ applications includes Backhaul
GSM, BTS for WiMAX, LTE, IP or Femto, WiMax ASN Gateway, BSC IP
or GGSN.
The following diagram show how 6WINDGate™
can be used in wireless equipment to add specific Flow Distribution
features providing some packet inspection to route flows to dedicated
applications. It also shows how 6WINDGate™ Multi-Instance features
can be used to provide system High Availability features on for
instance dual multi-core boards and multiple ATCA blades.
Flow distribution feature is distributed over
Fast Path and Slow Path and controlled by a Control Plane module.
This function makes use of the VNB framework for implementing networking-type
kernel objects. As this framework has been also ported in the Fast
Path, migration to Fast Path for optimal performance is straightforward
as it just requires recompilation.
Adding Flow Distribution to 6WINDGate™ to provide a complete
solution
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