Page 9 - Telecom Reseller March-April 2015

December/January 2015
Telecom Reseller 9

SDN AND NFV Performance

in the 100G Era, Part 2

Part one of this series on ensuring performance levels in the 100G era
explored the challenges of managing SDN and NV. Now it’s time to look at

the necessity of network appliances and acceleration solutions.

monitoring of the network, even at speeds of 100 BARRY
Gbps, without losing any information. Network
appliances provide this capability in real time.
By Dan Joe Barry, vice president
All network information must be captured and collected by network appliances in order for the of marketing, Napatech
analysis to be reliable. Network appliances receive (www.napatech.com)
data either from a Switched Port Analyzer (SPAN)
Network appliances are a necessity in order port on a switch or router that replicates all traic,
to manage Ethernet and IP networks or from passive taps that provide a copy of network
efectively. his is because all Ethernet
traic. hey then need to precisely time stamp each
frames and IP packets need to be collected and Ethernet frame to allow accurate determination
reassembled to enable efective management of events and latency measurements for quality
of services. his, in turn, requires continuous
of experience assurance. Network appliances also
recognize the encapsulated protocols, as well as
determine lows of traic that are associated with
the same senders and receivers.
hough appliances are broadly used for efective,
high-performance management and security of
Ethernet and IP networks, the taxonomy of network
appliances has grown outside of the FCAPS and
FAB nomenclature. he irst appliances were used
for troubleshooting performance and security
issues but have gradually become more proactive,
predictive and preventive in their functionality. he real-time capabilities that all appliances provide
make them essential to efective management of
Ethernet and IP networks. For this reason, network
appliances need to be encompassed in frameworks
for managing and securing SDN and NFV.
Accelerating Analysis for Real-Time Insight
Network appliances that are based on of-the-
shelf servers with standard Network Interface Cards
(NICs) are not designed for continuous capture of
large amounts of data and tend to lose packets. For
guaranteed data capture and delivery for analysis,
hardware acceleration solutions such as analysis
accelerators are used, which are intelligent adapters W
W
W
H
H
H
E
E
E
N
N
N
E
E
E
V
V
V
E
E
E
R
R
R
Y
Y
Y
I
I
I
N
N
N
G
G
G
R
R
R
E
E
E
D
D
D
I
I
I
E
E
E
N
N
N
T
T
T
I
I
I
S
S
S
P
P
P
R
R
R
E
E
E
M
M
M
I
I
I
E
E
E
R
R
R
,
,
,
Y
Y Y
O
O O
U
U U
E
E E
N
N N
D
D D
U
W
E E
I
M
designed for analysis applications.
E
M
H H
I
I I
N
N N
G
G G
R
R R
E
E E
M
M
A
A
R
A
R R
K
U U
P
P P
W
W
I
I
T
T T
H
H H
S
S S
O
O O
M
M
E
E
T
T T
H
K K
A
A A
B
B B
L
L L
E
Analysis accelerators are similar to NICs for
communication but difer in the fact that they are
designed speciically for continuous monitoring
and analysis of high-speed traic at maximum
capacity. hey meet the nanosecond-precision requirements for real-time monitoring and are
designed speciically for analysis. For monitoring
of a 10 Gbps bi-directional connection, this means
processing of 30 million packets per second.
Typically, a NIC is designed for the processing of 5
million packets per second.
With the ability to continuously monitor the
network, carriers assess the performance of the
network in real time and get an overview of
application and network usage. his information
can also be stored directly to disk, again in real time,
as it is being analyzed.
It is also possible to detect performance
degradations and security breaches in real time.
he network data that is captured to disk can be
used to build a proile of normal network behavior.
By comparing this proile to real-time captured
information, it is possible to detect anomalies and
raise a lag.
In a policy-driven SDN and NFV network, this
kind of capability can be very useful. If performance
degradation is lagged, a policy can automatically
take steps to address the issue. If a security breach
is detected, a policy can initiate more security
measurements and correlation of data with other
security systems. It can also use SDN and NFV
PREMIER PRODUCT
The ANPI Premier Partner Program delivers something few other
to reroute traic around the afected area and service providers can – premier everything. We have ANPI VIP, our
potentially block traic from the sender in question.
PREMIER COMPENSATION Hosted UC solution with a widget-based Customer Administration
Using the real-time capture, capture-to-disk
Portal. And Atlas, our innovative customer lifecycle management
and anomaly detection capabilities that network PREMIER NETWORK
appliances with hardware acceleration can provide, platform. Plus, we have 18 years of experience, a private nationwide IP
SDN and NFV performance can be maximized PREMIER SUPPORT network, a generous compensation plan and best-in-class support.
through a policy-driven framework. ■
Join the ANPI Premier Partner Program today. Call (877) 936-3003
PREMIER COMPANY
or visit anpi.com/partners.
Part three of this series will explore the use of
virtualization-aware network appliances.

p1-28_TR_Dec_Jan_2015.indd 9
15/01/2015 21:28