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On its Tenth Anniversary, NFV Meets Performance Needs of Tier 1 Operators

NFWARE BLOG

20/09/2022

Ten years ago this October, the telecom virtualization revolution was started at the SDN and OpenFlow World Congress in Darmstadt, Germany. That's when a white paper introducing Networks Functions Virtualization was presented.

The document was authored by experts from 13 telecommunications operators organized by the European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI). It was a call for action that was answered by the industry in a way that blew away many expectations.

But throughout that 10 year journey, operators worried about the issue of whether NFV systems could perform as well as single-function network appliances. The argument is that a dedicated ASIC with tuned software stack would always deliver better performance than a software-based solution running on a commercial-off-the-shelf (COTS) server with a NFV hypervisor.

But NFV has thrived and performance is just one reason. NFV took off thanks to a wide range of benefits that the technology offers to operators.

NFV Benefits

At the top of the list of NFV benefits are lower capital expense as COTS servers are less expensive than dedicated hardware, and reduced operating expenses as remote software maintenance was possible. NFV also made the network more scalable because operators could dedicate more or fewer cores to a network function or could remotely download a new instance on a new server to match traffic growth.

COTS servers based on the latest CPUs feature up to 30 or more cores. Operators can allocate those cores to multiple network functions running on a single server. This contributes to the reduced hardware costs, but also reduces the space, power and air conditioning needed for a data center.

Even with these benefits, operators want performance; and they are getting it thanks to NFV-enabling improvements throughout the entire hardware-software stack.

Sensing a huge market opportunity, mainstream CPU manufacturers have developed server CPUs that are tuned to virtual applications and have developed software to boost performance. Several of the highest profile software solutions include Single Root I/O Virtualization, which enables a direct connection between a PCIe device (usually a network adapter) and a virtual function; Data Plane Development Kit (DPDK), an open source set of data plane libraries and network interface controller polling-mode drivers that speed up east-west data flows between virtual machines; and Peripheral Component Interconnect (PCI) passthrough which enables a virtual machine to access and manage hardware devices.

vCGNAT Real Life Performance

Thanks to these improvements, NFV has thrived. Telecom OEMs have introduced virtualized replacements for many parts of the telecom network. Use cases such as enterprise branch office networking and 5G network infrastructure have standardized on NFV.

But still the performance perception lingers. So, let's look at the performance of the NFWare virtual CGNAT – the industry's first virtualized NAT software - to see just how an NVF application delivers.

We conducted this test in conjunction with Intel and with a distinguished test lab called the European Advanced Networking Test Center (EANTC). The tests were run on a server powered by dual 24-core, 2.1 GHz Intel Xeon Gold 6252 CPUs. The test configuration was set to test the software's performance when facing the maximum throughput generated by just under 100 million user sessions. A traffic generator was used to emulate four ports of bi-directional traffic from 20,000 internal client IP addresses converted to 1,245 server IP addresses.

The test lab tested various system and software configurations, which you can read about in detail here. The bottom line is that traffic levels reached more than 231 Gbps, which is more performance than even the largest tier one operator will need in a location. For example, in one real life vCGNAT deployment by a tier 1 carrier in a major city maxed out at 160 Gbps. With the performance we offer now, NFWare vCGNAT can meet the needs of even the biggest network operators with room to grow.

After 10 years, NFV is here to stay, thanks in part to the performance that it delivers. The technology demands consideration by all operators that need high performance network functions that offer better value and scalability.

Learn more about NFWare Virtual CGNAT

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