SDN, NFV, DPDK, OPNFV and more!

By Colleen C. (Intel), Updated

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Why does Intel contribute to the SDN and NFV communities?

Software Defined Networking (SDN) and Network Functions Virtualization (NFV) are moving out of the labs and into production deployments as a cheaper, faster, more flexible alternative to traditional hardware network 'appliances'.  

Just as virtualization has changed OS and application rollouts, NFV at layers 4 and above (control plane) and SDN at layer 2 and 3 (controlling packet movement) are revolutionizing the deployment and management of network traffic on off-the-shelf hardware and branded or Open Source OSs. This is where OPNFV can quickly get you started in the design and testing of your network. 

What are all these Open names?

The network and virtualization infrastructure tools define an information model, a set of APIs, and control protocols such as OpenFlow (a communication protocol between the control and forwarding layers) developed for OpenStack* (and branded) OS.

OpenStack* provides the framework to create/manage VMs (virtual machines). VMs are the base OS’s for the virtualized functions. VMs can have multiple virtual Network Interfaces.
OpenStack Neutron* is the networking component that abstracts Linux network configurations using a common API wrapped around the network function solutions (Open vSwitch, VLANs, iptables/netfilter, etc).
OpenDaylight* (Helium, Lithium, Beryllium) provides the code and architecture for virtualizing the network controller (control plane functions for configuration, monitoring, and management)
Open vSwitch* (OVS) is a production quality, multilayer, virtual network switch. (OVS can be a node connected to an OpenDaylight controller)
Data Plane Development Kit (DPDK) is a set of data plane libraries and NIC drivers that provide a programming framework for fast, high speed network packet processing on general purpose processors.
Open vSwitch* with the Data Plane Development Kit (OvS-DPDK) is a high performance, open source virtual switch.
OPNFV is a hardware and software reference for the advancement of NFV. 

Intel Technologies that boost performance

Intel (including Wind River) are major contributors to the DPDK and to Linux. Intel recently merged the Intel® DPDK vSwitch into the Open vSwitch main branch so that Neutron can use Intel’s accelerated packet processing while avoiding proprietary plugins. By building the switching logic on top of the Intel DPDK library, there is a significant boost to the packet switching throughput which can be integrated in both the host and guests of the OpenStack network compute nodes.

The Intel DPDK also adds samples of L3 forwarding, load balancing, and timers, all of which can help reduce development time. It also exposes resources as multiple virtual functions making them available to multiple VMs and available to speed up inter-VM communication.

Additionally Intel is prototyping Open NFV (OPNFV) concepts using the OpenDaylight platform to leverage Intel’s network performance enhancements.

Intel® QuickAssist Technology improves performance and efficiency across the data center by offloading servers from handling compute-intensive operations.  Server, networking, big data, and storage applications use Intel QuickAssist Technology for bulk cryptography, public key cryptography, and compression.

What SDN/NFV applications are available?

Many solution partners are listed at  https://networkbuilders.intel.com/solutionslibrary

Where can I find more information? 

Intel maintains several sites including: 

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