Netronome Launches Data Plane Hardware and Software for SDN and NFV Designs

Netronome Launches Data Plane Hardware and Software for SDN and NFV Designs

Netronome, the leading provider of data plane processing solutions for software-defined networks (SDN), today announced a platform architecture to augment virtual switch implementations with hardware acceleration NICs in standard servers for SDN and network functions virtualization (NFV) designs. The new products include a suite of FlowNIC PCIe Gen3 cards that scale up to 200 Gbps, along with a new FlowEnvironment software package that provides standards-based APIs and configuration protocols for virtual switch offload and acceleration.

"Netronome solves the scalability problem of virtual switch implementations in the intelligent network locations where the highest throughput and I/O densities are required, while maintaining the rapid evolution of a software-based edge,” said Niel Viljoen, founder and CEO, of Netronome. “With broad applicability to any virtualized server, the new products are optimized for use in servers running network and security applications, such as SDN middleboxes, SDN gateways and NFV appliances.”
Hyperscale data centers are leading a revolution that is migrating into service provider and enterprise network designs. A complex infrastructure is replaced with a simplified packet core built using merchant switch silicon, surrounded by a new, software-based, intelligent edge. The intelligent edge is comprised of standard servers that are responsible for hosting business applications, and also providing network and security services, while simultaneously directing traffic among virtual machines across a sophisticated overlay network. These network functions are implemented within a virtual switch and consume valuable processing resources. Consequently the complex and varying workloads stifle both application and networking performance.
“NTT Communications has been at the forefront of advancing SDN technologies with commercial use for our cloud computing, datacenter and network services for many years,” said Mr. Yukio Ito, director, member of the board, and senior vice president of service infrastructure at NTT Communications. “We’re evaluating Netronome’s solution of processors, software and NICs and expect to use them to extend our SDN offering into the Cloud-VPN Gateway with close collaboration with NTT Innovation Institute, Inc.”
“FirePower platforms have routinely set industry benchmarks for performance and security effectiveness in data center deployments,” said Tom Ashoff, vice president of engineering, Cisco Systems. “Netronome flow processors and software provide us the feature set and programmability to continue to keep pace with the rapid changes in these hyperscale networks.”
The FlowNIC-6xxx family packs the industry’s highest performance and port density into a PCIe Gen3 adapter, including 2x40, 4x40, 1x100 and 2x100 gigabit Ethernet options. The cards feature up to four PCIe Gen3 x8 interfaces, delivering unmatched host bandwidth to standard single, dual and quad socket servers. The cards feature 216 programmable cores to keep pace with the rapid change in SDN protocols and standards. Additional hardware accelerators are provided for cryptography, nanosecond accuracy time-stamping, SR-IOV, VMDq, and RoCE. Massive on-chip and on-board memories deliver 24M flow table entries, and 128K wildcard rules to satisfy the requirements of the most demanding SDN and NFV applications.
Netronome’s new FlowEnvironment software delivers more than a 20X increase to virtual switching performance and significantly increases the number of virtual machine instances available per server. The FlowEnvironment includes standards-compliant support for Open vSwitch (OVS) 2.0, OpenFlow 1.4, Intel DPDK, and network virtualization protocols such as NV-GRE and VXLAN. The production-ready software provides standard APIs and is fully supported across Netronome’s FlowProcessors that scale up to 400 Gbps. The software is supported on both existing NFE-32xx acceleration cards and the new FlowNIC-6xxx cards.
Netronome’s processors, software and FlowNICs are available to OEMs, ODMs and hyperscale network operators. Complete solutions can be purchased direct from Netronome, and through a premier set of partners and suppliers.
“We are pleased that so many customers and partners have chosen Netronome’s processors, software and NICs to help fulfill their vision for SDN and NFV,” said Jarrod Siket, senior vice president of marketing, at Netronome. “This complete solution benefits our customers by enabling their standard servers to reach line rate network performance while returning valuable, and previously wasted, compute resources to the applications and services that need them most.”

Published Tuesday, March 04, 2014 7:02 PM by David Marshall

Filed under: Networking

Netronome Systems Inc.

COMPANY: Netronome Systems Inc.
MARKET SEGMENT: Layer 4-7 traffic management (now) and application-aware network processors (soon)
LOCATION: Pittsburgh -- although the Website refers to Cranberry Township, Pa., dangerously close to Scranton
HEADCOUNT: 79, expected to be 94 by January, and 125 by mid-2008
FORMED: 2003
FINANCING: $28 million from 3i Group plc , Spinner Asset Management LLC , Top Technology Ventures Ltd. , and Tudor Investment Corp. Investors are adding another round to go with the Intel Corp. (Nasdaq: INTC) deal (see below).
WHAT IT DOES: Netronome sells cards and systems for Layer 4-7 processing functions, targeting applications delivery. A licensing deal for the Intel IXP2800 chip line means Netronome will also start designing and selling its own chips, which will include processing for Layers 2 through 7.
CUSTOMERS: None announced. Netronome says it's got design wins, but its customers' products haven't come to market yet.
PARTNERSHIPS: None, other than the Intel licensing deal.
COMPETITORS: Cavium Networks Inc. (Nasdaq: CAVM), Freescale Semiconductor Inc. , Raza Microelectronics Inc. , and ultimately Intel.
On the systems side, Netronome competes with the likes of Bivio Networks Inc. and CloudShield Technologies Inc.
MANAGEMENT SNAPSHOT:

Niel Viljoen, CEO – Viljoen was part of the Fore Systems crew acquired into Marconi. His name also got caught in the shareholder wrath over shares awarded to ex-Fore execs. (See Fraud Case Hangs Over Fore Fat Cats.) He left Marconi circa 2001 and spent a couple years as an angel investor in outfits like Intune Networks .

Derek McAuley, CTO – Another Fore veteran, McAuley also spent time with Cisco after its acquisition of Atlantech in 2000. Earlier, he'd been the founding director of an Intel lab at Cambridge in the U.K. and had a similar position with Microsoft Corp. (Nasdaq: MSFT) -- but his Ph.D. is in ATM networking.

Jim Finnegan, senior VP of engineering – Brought into Intel through its acquisition of Basis Communications, Finnegan eventually oversaw the development of Intel's network processor lines. Finnegan joined Netronome before the Intel deal, but his experience becomes an obvious asset now that the IXP2800 is back in his hands.
WHAT TO WATCH: The IXP2800 should expand Netronome's market, and it brings in some revenues. Meanwhile, Netronome's original business of boards and systems is just starting to rustle; customer announcements could help indicate how much of a dent it's made.
RECENT NEWS:

• Intel Licenses Netronome
• Netronome Intros SSL Product

— Craig Matsumoto, West Coast Editor, Light Reading

Blue Coat Acquires Netronome SSL Technology to Extend Leadership in Enterprise Security

Acquisition to Deliver SSL Traffic Visibility to IDS/IPS, Advanced Malware and Forensic Solutions in the Blue Coat Partner Ecosystem

Thursday, May 9, 2013

SUNNYVALE, Calif., May 9, 2013 – Blue Coat Systems, Inc., a market leader in Web securityand WAN optimization, today announced that it has acquired the SSL appliance product line from Netronome, a leader in flow processing. The Netronome SSL appliances enhance Blue Coat’s ability to enable a safe and productive Internet experience for enterprise organizations.

Web and SSL traffic can account for more than half of all traffic on the corporate network, driven by the adoption of cloud-based SaaS applications and the growing use of HTTPS for Web sites such as Google and Facebook. This type of encrypted traffic, left uninspected, can hide threats or other malicious activities. To effectively implement security protections before the traffic reaches the endpoint, it is important for enterprises to have in-network visibility into encrypted traffic.

“Many networks face a crisis today as the rise in SSL-based traffic creates an unrealistic reliance on the endpoint to detect threats or data loss,” said Greg Clark, CEO at Blue Coat Systems. “By analyzing SSL traffic within the network, corporations substantially reduce risk.”

The market-leading Netronome SSL appliances deliver SSL decryption in networks ranging from 100 Mbps to 10 Gbps full duplex, providing enterprises with visibility into the traffic on their network. As a fully transparent proxy, the SSL appliances seamlessly integrate into existing security environments to protect infrastructure investments while mitigating costly changes to network topology or client re-configuration. The appliances also provide up to four data feeds to a wide range of in-network security applications, such as intrusion prevention, intrusion detection, sandboxing and forensics, which can then analyze the data for threats or data breaches.

“Increasingly, analytics is an important tool for analyzing advanced threats and avoiding data loss,” said Christian Christiansen, vice president of security products and services at IDC. “To be effective at analytics, enterprises need to inspect traffic that flows through their network. SSL is one of the more important traffic flows. Blue Coat’s acquisition of the Netronome technology enables customers to add this analytics capability by providing inspection capabilities at scale.”

Once the Netronome SSL appliances are fully integrated with existing Blue Coat products, enterprises will be able to apply consistent policy to all traffic on the network. 

“The SSL appliances are the industry’s highest performance transparent proxy for SSL network communications and provide unique visibility exposing inbound threats and outbound leaks,” said Howard Bubb, chief executive officer at Netronome. “The product is an ideal complement to Blue Coat’s comprehensive suite of security products and extends their leadership position in securing SSL communications.”

The Netronome appliances are currently available through certified OEM partners, including Sourcefire and VSS Monitoring, and will be available through authorized Blue Coat channel partners shortly. As part of the acquisition, the existing product team will join Blue Coat to provide uninterrupted support to existing customers and OEM partners.

“Netronome’s SSL technology has played a valuable role in helping us to realize our Agile Security® vision,” said Tom McDonough, president and COO of Sourcefire. “Blue Coat's acquisition of the technology will broaden our existing technology partnership and enhance global support benefits to our customer base.”

About Blue Coat Systems

Blue Coat Systems is a leading provider of Web security and WAN optimization solutions. Blue Coat offers solutions that provide the visibility, acceleration and security required to optimize and secure the flow of information to any user, on any network, anywhere. This application intelligence enables enterprises to tightly align network investments with business requirements, speed decision making and secure business applications for long-term competitive advantage. Blue Coat also offers service provider solutions for managed security and WAN optimization, as well as carrier-grade caching solutions to save on bandwidth and enhance the end-user Web experience. For additional information, please visit bluecoat.com.

Blue Coat, ProxySG and the Blue Coat logo are registered trademarks or trademarks of Blue Coat Systems, Inc. and/or its affiliates in the United States and certain other countries. All other trademarks mentioned in this document are the property of their respective owners.

Media Contacts

Jennifer Ruzicka
Blue Coat Systems
jennifer.ruzicka@bluecoat.com
408-541-3330

Dave Bowker
Schwartz MSL
bluecoat@schwartzmsl.com
781-684-0770