Has virtualization become obsolete in 5G?

Thu Aug 6 19:05:04 UTC 2020

On Thu, Aug 6, 2020 at 11:52 AM Mark Tinka <mark.tinka at seacom.com> wrote:

> On 6/Aug/20 17:43, Mel Beckman wrote:
>
> > 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.
>
> My point exactly.
>
> If much of the cloud-native is happening on servers with Intel chips,
> and part of the micro-services is to also provide data plane
> functionality at that level, I don't see how it can scale for legacy
> mobile operators. It might make sense for niche, start-up mobile
> operators with little-to-no traffic serving some unique case, but not
> the classics we have today.

Isn't this just, really:
  1) some network gear with SDN bits that live on the next-rack over
servers/kubes
  2) services (microservices!) that do the SDN functions AND NFV
functions AND billing
      (extending IMS to the edge etc)

> Now, if they are writing their own bits of code on or for white boxes
> based on Broadcom et al, not sure that falls in the realm of
> "micro-services with Kubernetes". But I could be wrong.

the discussion (I think) got conflated here...
there's: "network equipment" and "microservices equipment" (service equipment?)

and really 'I need a fast, cheap network device I can dynamically program for
 things which don't really smell like 'DFZ size LPM routing"'

is just code for: "sdn control the switch, sending traffic either at
'default' or based
on 'service data' some microservice architecture of NFV things.

> > 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.
>
> Which we, as network operators, can all agree on.
>
> But the 5G folk seem to have other ideas, so I just want to see what is
> actually truth, and what's noise.

5g folk seem to have lots of good marketing, and reasons to sell complexity
to their carrier 'partners' (captive prisoners? maybe that's too pejorative :) )