Intel Launches Communications Platform for Network Transformation

intel-platform-communicaton

High;and Forest is Intel's new platform for network communications.

Intel (INTC) this week launched Highland Forest, a communications platform that will drive the chipmaker's ambitions for network transformation in software defined networking and network functions virtualization.

After launching the Crystal Forest platform in 2012 Intel sees tremendous growth opportunities in the networking silicon market, including silicon for CPUs, ASICs, and FPGAs. The innovation in accelerator and chipset technologies resulted in a 2-6x performance improvement between generations.

The Highland Forest platform will boost network performance up to 255 million packets per second, according to Intel, which is powering the platform with its Xeon E5-2600 v2 processors with the next generation of Intel Communications Chipset Series 89xx (Coleto Creek).

Highlighting the performance gains, Intel GM and VP of the Data Center group Rose Schooler says the new platform scales up to 255 Mpps of L3 forwarding (64  bytes packets), 110 Gbps of IPsec throughput, 200 Gbps of OpenSSL throughput, and 140 Gbps of deep packet inspection (DPI) throughput. Highland Forest will also allow telecom customers to consolidate workloads.

Intel special-purpose hardware accelerators are integrated in a family of pin-compatible server chipsets, called the Intel Communications Chipset 89xx Series, and in the Intel Atom processor C2758, which is ideal for entry-level, network equipment. A simple API invokes the hardware-based compression and cryptography acceleration supported by Intel QuickAssist Technology using Intel-developed or open source framework patches.

The new communications platform enables organizations to scale up and down, using a common architecture and programming model under Highland Forest. To foster collaboration within Intel's Network Builders ecosystem, the company seeks to increase ecosystem alignment, leading to the design of world-class solutions, from partners like Akamai, Arista, Brocade, Dell, F5, HP, Quanta, vmware, and many others.