Products for Intel SDN Networks

Intel devices and software for building computer networks traditionally remain in the shadow of more spectacular and well-known products, while in this area there are interesting news and fundamentally new solutions. In this post, we briefly describe one of these solutions - SDN networks. And not only we will tell, but we will also offer the Intel SDN equipment for free!

To begin, briefly recall what it is. SDN (Software-Defined Networking, software defined network) is a relatively new approach to building networks, in which the control level is programmed directly and it is unbound from the data transfer level. The result is an incredibly flexible, manageable, adaptive and cost-effective network architecture that allows the administrator to control and automate routine operations at a qualitatively new level.


SDN architecture

The basis of SDN is the OpenFlow protocol, which implements the interaction of the controller with network devices. Through the API, the controller fits in with various business applications that require specific configuration or network characteristics. Thus, the settings and functionality of network devices, previously hard-wired in their firmware, are now implemented openly and programmatically, which promises great promise.
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For the development and promotion of SDN per se and OpenFlow, in particular, the Open Networking Foundation (ONF) alliance has been created, which currently includes all major network equipment manufacturers, such as Alcatel-Lucent, Cisco, Dell, Ericsson, Extreme Networks, HP, Huawei , IBM, Juniper Networks, and, of course, Intel .

In 2013, Intel introduced a line of products designed to work in SDN networks — matrices for the Intel Ethernet Switch FM5000 / FM6000 switches . Their main characteristics are shown in the table below.

	Intel FM6764	Intel FM6724	Intel FM5224
Bandwidth	640 Gbit / s	240 Gbit / s	240 Gbit / s
Technical process	65 nm	65 nm	65 nm
SGMII Ports	72	72	72
10G KR ports	64	24	eight
Ports 40G KR4	sixteen	6	2
Frame processing speed	960 M / s	360 M / s	360 M / s
Batch cache size	8 MB	8 MB	8 MB
MAC table size	64 K	64 K	64 K
Number of IPv4 / IPv6 routes	64K / 16K	64K / 16K	64K / 16K

Due to the flexible architecture of the matrix, the main protocols for Datacenter are L3 switching, MPLS, NAT, PFC (priority flow control), ETS (enhanced transmission selection), TRILL, VXLAN, NVGRE and DCBx. At the same time, high performance and non-blocking switching along with extremely low latency (400 ns) is maintained.

The software component of the development was already known to us owned by Intel company WindRiver. An important part of supporting the platform was the development of WindRiver ONS (Open Network Software), which not only uses all the capabilities of the matrices, but also provides tools for developing applications, access to low-level switches, an environment for testing based on Python.

Also in the previous year, platforms based on Intel FM5000 / 6000 + WindRiver ONS became available.


ETegro Eos 410i switch : 48 10G SFP + ports and 4 40G Ethernet ports, Intel FM6764 matrix.

Well, in conclusion, the promised tempting offer. ETegro Technologies invites network application developers and companies that are going to test / implement SDN solutions for testing the switchboard in real-world applications. One switch will be presented to the authors of the most interesting project, including high-loaded solutions on traditional switching. Summarizing March 31. All interested please send a request by e-mail .