Has virtualization become obsolete in 5G?

Thu Aug 6 15:43:04 UTC 2020

Mark,

I don’t think you’re going to move those volumes with Intel X86 chips. For example, AT&T’s Open Compute Project whitebox architecture is based on Broadcom Jericho2 processors, with aggregate on-chip throughput of 9.6 Tbps, and which support 24 ports at 400 Gbps each. This is where AT&T’s 5G slicing is taking place.

https://about.att.com/story/2019/open_compute_project.html

Intel has developed nothing like this, and has had to resort to acquisition of multi-chip solutions to get these speeds (e.g. its purchase of Barefoot Networks Tofino2 IP).

The X86 architecture is too complex and carries too much non-network-related baggage to be a serious player in 5G slicing.

 -mel

On Aug 6, 2020, at 8:24 AM, Mark Tinka <mark.tinka at seacom.com> wrote:

On 6/Aug/20 15:43, Shane Ronan wrote:

Yes they are for 5G core.

Right, but for legacy operators, or new entrants?

If you know where we can find some info about deployment and
experiences, that would be very interesting to read.

We've all been struggling to make Intel CPU's shift 10's, 40's and 100's
of Gbps of revenue traffic as a routing platform, so would like to know
how the operators are getting on with this.

Mark.
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