Altera brings the value of FPGAs to Network Function Virtualization

Altera has joined the Open Platform for NFV (OPNFV), a community-led, industry-supported, open-source reference platform for network function virtualization (NFV). NPV uses IT virtualization technologies to virtualize entire classes of network node functions into building blocks that may be connected, or chained, to create communication services. Altera will join working groups inside the OPNFV to enable expand the use of FPGA accelerators in virtual machines running different software and processes on top of industry-standard, high-volume servers, storage and cloud computing infrastructure.

“FPGAs can be used to ‘super-charge’ virtual machine applications while saving on power, making them an excellent fit for the NFV industry,” said Francis Chow, vice president and general manager of the Communications Business Unit at Altera. “At the same time, FPGAs can reduce capital and operational expenditures, speed service and improve product introduction times for NFV applications, providing a more efficient solution.”

FPGAs act as accelerators by offloading compute workloads, using less power than general-purpose graphics processing units (GPGPUs) and central processor units (CPUs) —which helps data centers run cooler. FPGA- and SoC-based solutions are already accelerating servers in the data center in search and convolutional neural networks applications.

“OPNFV is about collaboration from a diverse group of players from across the industry to craft an open platform that we can all use to accelerate NFV” said Heather Kirksey, director, OPNFV. “We are excited to welcome new silver member, Altera, who is poised to help us implement the goals of open source NFV."

 

The OPNFV’s Work Benefits Service Providers

Initial interest in working with the OPNFV has come from the network service provider community, including OPNFV founding members AT&T, China Mobile, NTT DOCOMO, Telecom Italia and Vodafone, among others. In addition, other industries such as the financial services industry, large enterprises and cloud service providers are showing interest as their needs for NFV.

Q.ANT delivers the first photonic co-processor to LRZ, ushering in an era of energy-efficient,...
KIOXIA Europe introduces its 512Gb TLC memory with groundbreaking 9th generation BiCS FLASH™...
Leil Storage enhances its open-source file system with SaunaFS 5.0, now supporting HAMR SMR drives...
Microsoft Sentinel's data lake revolutionizes security operations by centralizing data, enhancing...
LTO tape technology breaks records with a 15.4% growth, revealing its pivotal role in modern...
KIOXIA Europe introduces the revolutionary 245.76TB NVMe SSD in its LC9 Series, setting new...
Seagate unveils 30TB Exos® M and IronWolf® Pro HDDs, driving AI's impact on data storage and...
F5 and MinIO join forces to enhance AI workloads through scalable solutions addressing global data...