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Licensing
Yes, 6WIND has all the required authorizations to export cryptography to all countries that are not under embargo. We have a dedicated document that details our export license.
6WINDGate software is a mix of software under GPL or other open source licenses and 6WIND license. Software under open source license included in 6WINDGate is listed in the Publicly Available Software document available with every 6WINDGate release.
Yes. 6WIND provides services around its 6WINDGate technology including architecture design, specific support and software development.
Yes. We provide worldwide technical support.
Yes. The standard 6WINDGate training class is a 3 to 5-day training that can be provided at 6WIND or in your premises for a maximum of 10 people. Training is highly recommended to understand 6WINDGate concepts as early as possible in your development process. Our standard training can also be customized upon request to help you to kick-off your project.
We provide maintenance services under an annual contract. Some specific support services can also be provided according to specific customers’ requirements (Technical Account Manager, extended maintenance services, long term support …).
Your 6WINDGate license is granted without any time limitation. 6WINDGate software updates are delivered as long as you have a valid maintenance contract.
A 6WINDGate license is granted for a processor, a Linux distribution and a set of modules to develop a product or a range of products. The scope of the license can be extended when needed.
6WIND sells its 6WINDGate packet processing software through a source code licensing model. The license includes an upfront development fee and per-unit royalties.
We sell source code with our 6WINDGate packet processing software.
Applications
Our customers have integrated 6WINDGate with Aricent, Inside Secure, RadiSys (Trillium), Marben, Mocana and Metaswitch signaling protocols.
One of the key advantages of the 6WINDGate architecture is that Linux APIs are preserved. So, if your application uses standard Linux APIs, you will not have to modify your existing application to take advantage of 6WINDGate’s packet processing.
6WINDGate accelerates packet processing for a myriad of applications including mobile infrastructure, network security, data center optimization, network function virtualization (NFV) and software-defined networking (SDN) architectures.
6WIND licenses its products to tier-1 customers all around the world including OEMs and network builders. A list of our main customers is available here.
Architecture
No, we do not support other Operating Systems than Linux.
Except the TCP/UDP Termination IPv4 fast path module and its IPv6 extension that requires a specific integration with the application, all other 6WINDGate fast path modules support the synchronization mechanism with Linux.
In 6WINDGate fast path-based solutions, the fast path receives all incoming packets in the system. Its goal is to provide very high packet processing performance. Therefore, it does not process complex, time consuming packets that represent only a small fraction of the overall traffic. For example, packets that require a state machine to compute forwarding information (such as ARP or routing protocols) are not processed in the fast path.
When an incoming packet is too complex to be processed by the fast path, it is sent to Linux as an exception packet, to be processed by the Linux networking stack or the control plane. Then, thanks to the continuous synchronization mechanism, the computed information in Linux will be automatically configured in the fast path, so that the next packet of the same flow can be processed in the fast path.
This Exception mechanism, combined with the Continuous Synchronization of Linux and the fast path, enables 6WINDGate to process any kind of packet and ensures the consistency of the whole system.
In a standard Linux architecture, the control plane updates the Linux networking stack for both static and dynamic configurations. When using a fast path like in 6WINDGate, it has also to be synchronized with the same information to have a consistent system. 6WINDGate architecture has been designed to make this synchronization fully transparent.
The 6WINDGate packet processing software runs on dedicated cores, isolated from the Linux operating system. This software consists of a high performance networking stack, the fast path, designed to provide the highest throughput and the lowest latency. Packet processing is offloaded from the Linux operating system.
Overview
A detailed quarterly roadmap is available upon request and after signing a NDA.
Yes. It can be found here.
The complete list of supported modules is available on the 6WINDGate software modules page on our Web site. Detailed data sheets for each 6WINDGate module are available upon request.
Fast Path
The 6WINDGate fast path comes with a fragmentation / reassembly module for both IPv4 and IPv6 that allows fragmentation / reassembly processing to be offloaded from the Linux networking stack.
Nothing has to be done as 6WIND provides a complete and integrated solution. Fast path modules are integrated together and integrated with the Linux stack and control plane.
Thanks to the FPN-SDK, most of our 6WINDGate fast path software is generic. However, the use of processor specific resources such as hardware queues for QoS is processor-dependent. 6WIND also implements some specific low-level optimizations to make the most out of the processor.
Yes. 6WIND is the founder of the dpdk.org open source project. 6WIND is one of the main contributors to the project. 6WINDGate uses DPDK for Intel and IBM Power architectures and the FPN-SDK for the two architectures is interfacing DPDK.
The 6WINDGate FPN-SDK is the execution environment for the fast path modules. The FPN-SDK is hardware-dependent and is identified by the hardware architecture. We currently support Intel, Cavium, and IBM Power architectures. The support of Mellanox NPS and Kalray MPPA processors is planned in our road map.
The FPN-SDK includes:
- The generic abstraction APIs used to implement fast path modules independently from the underlying hardware with zero-overhead, using the services of the processor SDK.
- The exception mechanism between Linux and the fast path.
Linux Networking Stack
The 6WINDGate fast path comes with a fragmentation / reassembly module for both IPv4 and IPv6 that allows fragmentation / reassembly processing to be offloaded from the Linux networking stack.
Nothing has to be done as 6WIND provides a complete and integrated solution. Fast path modules are integrated together and integrated with the Linux stack and control plane.
Thanks to the FPN-SDK, most of our 6WINDGate fast path software is generic. However, the use of processor specific resources such as hardware queues for QoS is processor-dependent. 6WIND also implements some specific low-level optimizations to make the most out of the processor.
Yes. 6WIND is the founder of the dpdk.org open source project. 6WIND is one of the main contributors to the project. 6WINDGate uses DPDK for Intel and IBM Power architectures and the FPN-SDK for the two architectures is interfacing DPDK.
The 6WINDGate FPN-SDK is the execution environment for the fast path modules. The FPN-SDK is hardware-dependent and is identified by the hardware architecture. We currently support Intel, Cavium, and IBM Power architectures. The support of Mellanox NPS and Kalray MPPA processors is planned in our road map.
The FPN-SDK includes:
- The generic abstraction APIs used to implement fast path modules independently from the underlying hardware with zero-overhead, using the services of the processor SDK.
- The exception mechanism between Linux and the fast path.
Control Plane
Yes. Routing and IKE software that is able to configure Linux kernel routing or IPsec information will transparently benefit from the 6WINDGate fast path thanks to the Continuous Synchronization mechanism.
Both IKEv1 and IKEv2 are supported. 6WIND has improved both versions of IKE to support a large number of IKE sessions.
Yes. Virtual Routing is supported for RIP, RIPng, OSPFv2, OSPFv3 and BGP. Control plane Virtual Routing has been integrated and validated with the fast path forwarding module that also supports Virtual Routing.
We support RIP, RIPng, OSPFv2, OSPFv3 and BGP as well as SMR (Static Monitored Route) and BFD (Bidirectional Forwarding Detection).
Management System
The 6WINDGate management architecture is very flexible and can provide different solutions for smooth integration of 6WINDGate with an existing management system:
- Call the 6WINDGate management system from yours to integrate the management of new features brought by 6WINDGate, using NETCONF or the CLI
- Use direct Linux calls
- Extend the 6WINDGate management system to call yours
The 6WIND Service and Support team can help you to choose the best solution according to your requirements.
Yes. 6WINDGate provides a NETCONF/YANG API for configuration and monitoring of 6WINDGate. Our YANG schemas are publicly available and our CLI is an example of NETCONF client, built directly from the YANG models.
Note that pure Linux-based configuration is supported as well.
Yes. Thanks to the transparent synchronization mechanism, SNMP queries remain consistent for the whole system even when a fast path is used, transparently for the SNMP agent.
Yes, a command-line interface is provided to interact with 6WINDGate. It can be used to configure, monitor and troubleshoot. It provides help and completion, as well as the management of configuration files to save and restore a complete and consistent configuration in one command.
The CLI is actually a NETCONF client that communicates with 6WINDGate’s YANG-based configuration engine.
Note that pure Linux-based configuration is supported as well.
Yes. Thanks to the transparent synchronization mechanism, Linux + 6WINDGate is Linux. Configuring a VLAN, a route, a filtering rule, etc. supported by Linux is done exactly the same way when configuring Linux + 6WINDGate. Standard tools like tcpdump, ethtools or graphical Linux tools like Grafana can all be used unmodified with Linux + 6WINDGate.
Distributed Architectures
Yes.
In case of a single multicore architecture, synchronization between the Linux networking stack and the fast path is handled through a shared memory. In dual multi core processor architecture, Linux is running on one processor, while the fast path is running on the other one. There is no shared memory between Linux networking stack and fast path.
In such architecture, the fast path 1CP – 1FP module is required and allows synchronizing the Linux networking stack with the remote fast path through a network connection between the two processors.
As a result, the 6WINDGate architecture can be equally deployed over:
- shared cores of a single multicore processor,
- two different multicore processors (one core being allocated to Linux and the other one to the fast path),
- one multicore processor running the fast path and another, possibly non-multicore, processor running Linux.
High-Availability (HA) Support
The 6WINDGate HA solution includes:
- Virtual Border Router Redundancy Protocol
- HA Daemon Monitoring System (control plane) that monitors 6WINDGate daemons
- HA control plane Synchronization Daemon for different protocols (ARP/NDP, routing, IPsec, firewall / NAT, etc.) <