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CTO View: Boosting VNF Performance with Vector Packet Processing (VPP) Featured

Nicolas Bouthors, Chief Technical Officer at Qosmos'Telcos are looking for next generation solutions based on SDN and NFV, and in particular they are looking for ways to leverage the OPNFV architecture.' 

At the SDN & OpenFlow World Congress 11 - 14 October in The Hague, Netherlands, Nicolas Bouthors, Chief Technical Officer at Qosmos will present on the topic of Vector Packet Processing (VPP), and will describe how VPP can be used to build applications faster, improve VNF performance and run several applications simultaneously. Qosmos will also describe VNFs such as firewalling, traffic shaping and NAT running off a single VPP, scaling from CPE-size to core network functions.

The following is an interview by Erik Larsson, VP of Marketing at Qosmos with Nicolas on his views on the topic.

Erik Larsson: What are the pain points that you hear from telcos and from networking vendors?

Nicolas Bouthors: Telcos are looking for next generation solutions based on SDN and NFV, and in particular they are looking for ways to leverage the OPNFV architecture. This means that their suppliers, the networking vendors, need an efficient framework to develop these new, carrier-grade high-performance VNFs. Until now, they only had some basic technology such as Linux, Iptables, OVS, or Intel DPDK, and as a result development remains complex and costly…

Erik Larsson: What is VPP and how can it ease development of new networking products?

Nicolas Bouthors: VPP is the open source version of Cisco's Vector Packet Processing (VPP) technology, a high performance, packet-processing stack which runs on commodity CPUs. This virtual switch module was made open-source by Cisco in early 2016, as part of the Linux Foundation project FD.io (“Fido”), focused on solving new networking challenges. VPP has a track record of high performance, flexibility, and a rich feature set. For the networking industry, it is a new disruptive technology with the potential to both lower cost and risk for teams developing a new generation of virtualized networking applications.

Erik Larsson: Could you describe the practical benefits of using VPP?

Nicolas Bouthors: Within the CTO Office at Qosmos we have been exploring different ways of leveraging VPP as a framework to build applications faster and to improve VNF performance. We have made several interesting findings: 1) it is possible to make multiple stateful applications coexist on a single VPP, 2) we can scale from small devices such as CPEs all the way up to core VNFs. We have been able to successfully use VPP for specific use cases like firewalling and performance monitoring based on Deep Packet Inspection (DPI).

Erik Larsson: What are some of your conclusions and recommendations?

Nicolas Bouthors: VPP in itself is good, but our practical experience shows that VPP must be complemented with key functionality like DPI software linked to shared flow tables, and be fully integrated and monitored through OPNFV using standard management tools such as OpenStack for orchestration and OpenDaylight (ODL) as a controller. This is how you get a complete solution which is application-aware and in line with open source networking architecture.

 


Example: Monitoring OpenStack VMs with one click

Erik Larsson: How do you see Qosmos’ role?

Nicolas BouthorsFor networking vendors, we can provide professional services in the form of VPP development & engineering, integrating DPI libraries with flow tables, and a pre-tested architecture model leveraging OPNFV, OpenStack, and ODL. From a technology point of view, we bring the Qosmos ixEngine, a DPI engine which provides real-time traffic classification up to Layer 7, an enhanced version of VPP based on shared flow tables, and a way to serve several application VNFs from a single VPP. In a nutshell, our concrete experience can help networking vendors accelerate time to market for new, high-performance and application-aware VNFs.

Erik Larsson: What should I do if I am interested in knowing more and having a discussion with Qosmos experts?

Nicolas Bouthors: I would be glad to have a discussion; we would be glad to work with interested parties on joint contributions to the VPP project and on related topics. You are welcome to contact us through Qosmos.com.

About Nicolas Bouthors
As CTO, Nicolas Bouthors leads Qosmos' technology strategy, driving the company's initiatives in open and virtualized networks. He contributes to standards bodies such as ONF SDN, ETSI NFV and IETF SFC, and Open Source Projects centred around Network Virtualization. Nicolas has spent over 20 years in the telecommunications industry.
Early in his career, he was instrumental in creating HP's OpenCall business. Then as the R&D manager of Inovatel, the advanced research organization of SFR, Nicolas led several innovative projects highlighting the impact of internet technologies on Mobile Operators. Nicolas was also CTO and founder of Volubill, a company building a Policy and Charging Rules Function product for the mobile network market. He holds several patents relating to Mobile Data Charging. He has an engineering degree from the French schools Ecole Polytechnique and Les Mines de Paris.

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