Xelerated Xpress

Xelerated Is Four Years Ahead

I participated in an inspiring 100G panel at the Linley Tech Processor Conference last week. We didn’t have to debate about the need for more bandwidth and more processing. The debate, instead, was focused on how to best achieve the goal. Network processors, that are purposely designed for the task, or multicore processors that are general purpose and more capable for advanced services?

The Linley Tech Processor Conference attracted 300 attendees.

In the first day’s sessions, one could easily get the impression that multicores are up to the task of network processing. Thanks to Mike Coward of RadiSys, however, the bold marketing claims got a good reality check. RadiSys build systems based on multicore technology. Today, they do 10G per line card. In two, years, they expect to run up to 100G, and 100G in a single chip is likely four years out, all according to his estimation.

For those that don’t want to wait this long, you are welcome to Xelerated. Our 100G wirespeed NPU is here, and now going into production. And in addition to any of the multicore processors in the market, it also includes an advanced traffic manager.

Update: Xelerated’s presentation on ‘Uncompromised throughput at low power’ can be found here.

by Per Lembre on Oct. 11th, 2011

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Thumbs Up for HX Rev B

The HX Rev B Network Processor is back from the wafer, and running in the lab. Xelerated Xpress gives you the initial report on the world’s first 100G NPU production silicon. We met with Johan Westergren, hardware engineer.

Xpress: Were you nervous when you turned on the power on the first HX Rev B processor?

Johan Westergren: Excited is probably a better word for it. We have worked hard and made our preparation.

Xpress: How did the chip respond?

JW: We had an initial hick up, and yes, we got a bit nervous honestly. But it is very common that you set a parameter wrong. But once that was sorted, we could quickly move on to infrastructure tests. We ran BISTs on internal memories, we set clocks, and we ran basic functions on all subsystems. After the first business day, we had a multi- parallel test effort rolling.

Xpress: And what about the continuous progress?

JW: We work at a great pace and the chip behaves very well. We are keeping up with the test plan schedule.

Xpress: So what happens between now and product release in November?

JW: The test plan covers a range of cases, all of them well detailed, implemented and tested on the Rev A version of the HX network processor. System test run application scenarios to verify the chip against customer application types. In addition we have started characterization to validate how the chip behaves under different power and temp conditions.

Xpress: Can you say anything on the quality?

JW: This far it looks promising. We pay close attention to quality in the architecture and design of the chip, and it is in the testing environment you see how that starts to pay off.

Read all about the family of HX network processors, and the Carrier Ethernet solutions they empower.

by Per Lembre on Sep. 8th, 2011

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Green Sign for Xelerated Traffic Manager in System Test

Xelerated has put the integrated Traffic Manager to a big performance and functional test. And it came through in a good shape. Olof Rutgersson, System Test Manager, reports for Xelerated Xpress.

Xpress: What did you test?

OR: We put the TM up for a realistic broadband user and service shaping case featuring hierarchical shaping and buffering. We ran several types of tests to see how the system behaves under stress.

Xpress: What were the test objectives?

OR: Our goal was to utilize every part of advanced TM functionality simultaneously under high traffic load. The tests were designed to validate both the TM hardware and the TM software APIs to handle the high demands on functionality and performance in today’s broadband networks.

Xpress: And what were the results?

OR: Everything went as expected. With no exceptions. So I have only green marks to report in the test report.

Xpress: Is that so? Can you possibly elaborate a bit further?

OR: The results were very conclusive, for every test the TM performed according to its design specification. The results were almost surprisingly perfect with regards to shaper accuracy, buffer depth, scheduling algorithms and WRED drop probabilities. Our test results were nearly indistinguishable from the theoretical models.

Xpress: What was the most challenging test?

OR: That was to simultaneously monitor and measure performance on 48 Gigabit Ethernet ports with 38,400 queues to check throughput rate, buffer depth and traffic prioritization for every single queue. The dynamic nature of traffic management required some tests to run for several hours before final results were reached.

Xpress: Promising results. Any conclusive remarks?

OR: All in all I am happy that we with great confidence can offer such a well-designed integrated Traffic Manager to our customers.

Want to read the full report? Please contact us to get your own issue of the Traffic Manager Test Report.

by Per Lembre on Sep. 8th, 2011

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It Is About Time for One-step PTP

Xelerated is providing the industry’s most flexible and exact Precision Time Solution. The new Rev B of the HX network processors and AX programmable Ethernet switches come with enhanced precision time logic. We met with Tord Haulin and Johan Bäck who have engineered Xelerated’s precision time solution to give you the details.

Xpress: What’s new in Xelerated’s precision time solution?

Tord Haulin: We have added a Precision Time Unit to every Ethernet MAC embedded on the NPU. This is a piece of flexible time stamping and time correction logic, which allows advanced synchronization services. The precision time unit has one-step time stamping capability and offloads the CPU from latency calculation tasks.

Xpress: What is One-step PTP?

TH: One-step PTP is quickly becoming a key requirement for synchronization services to base stations in Carrier Ethernet mobile backhaul networks.  It allows to fully utilize the advantages provided by PTPv2-2008. With one-step time stamping each PTP event packet gets its latency time added ‘on-the-fly’, before the PTP packet is further forwarded to the next node towards the base station. Although this adds to the processing of PTP packets, we have implemented a solution that actually improves the time stamp precision.

Xpress: How precise is the solution?

Johan Bäck: To achieve high accuracy, time stamping has to be done as close to the wire as possible. We have paid close attention to jitter, and even managed to reach nanosecond time stamp accuracy for the higher link speeds. You won’t find anything better than that in the market.

Xpress: What about customers who want to support other PTP profiles, like legacy two-step PTP?

TH: The precision time solution supports PTPv1 and all clock modes in PTPv2-2008.

Xpress: What about Synchronous Ethernet?

TH: Synchronous Ethernet is of course also supported. You can flexibly monitor and select links for locking the frequency of the real time clock embedded on the NPU.

Xpress: Can other applications benefit from the new precision time unit?

JB: Sure.The technology has been developed for superior flexibility. We see One-step PTP as an important use case of course, but having time logic in the MAC increases the overall capability of the network processor. The most obvious area for other usages is OAM and performance monitoring.

Interested to understand more about Xelerated Precision Time Solution? Check out our Precision Time white paper.

Note! PTP is short for Precision Time Protocol. This is an IEEE standard initially developed for the automation industry in mind, but was re-engineered in 2008 to support wide scale carrier deployments. The updated standard is referred to PTP IEEE 1588-2008.

by Per Lembre on Sep. 8th, 2011

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Online Video Driving Demand for 100G

In an interview with Light Reading, Paul Savell of Level3 comments on 100G.  In a nutshell, he says 100G is very important, but service providers are struggeling with the economics. He is looking for a new and more cost effective 100GE/OTU4 technology.

He reports the Internet backbone traffic growth is back at 100%, driven mainly by video traffic going online. Netflix, Voddler and other over the top video services are quickly gaining popularity. In the US, Netflix represents 30% of the Internet bandwidth at peak hours, according to a report by Sandvine.

Another point of interest is the increased need for adaptability. Cloud services are mainly driven by IT, not by the networking folks. While packet-based networks are flexible, the equipment serving our public broadband networks is not always designed to cope with unexpected changes of traffic patterns. Neither are they designed to support future protocol innovations developed to make networks better suitable to online video and ultimate on-demand nature of cloud services.

See the complete interview with Paul Savell at LRTV.

by Per Lembre on May. 18th, 2011

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Making a Rapid Move to 100GE

The 40GE/100GE standards are ready, but the industry has a long way still to go before we see high volumes. What is holding back adaption? Big content providers like Facebook and Google have been pushing for commercial viable 100GE systems for some time. The Internet backbone players are increasingly challenged to keep up with bandwidth demand. I believe Michael Howard of Infonetics summarized it well at the Ethernet Summit in San Jose recently. As he put it, “Early components are expensive as well as large, power-hungry and hot, and there are still several generations to go in downsizing these parts for more economical systems.“

So, let us look at an example of a 100GE board of today, using in-house designed packet processing silicon:

The line card is packed with silicon to perform packet processing, traffic management and buffering for 100 Gbit/s of traffic. Here is where the new member of the HX family, the HX336 comes into play. The HX336 includes a 100 Gbit/s traffic manager with deep packet buffering in off-chip DRAM. By utilizing the service density of the HX family, the line card above can be optmized to only use two chips for packet processing and traffic management, a pair of HX326 and HX336. The HX336 is used in the egress pass supporting both packet processing and traffic management. The HX326 is responsible for traffic classification and packet processing in the ingress path. Reducing the number of chips for packet processing, traffic management and buffering from four to six to two result in significant power and cost savings. Several of our customers have witnessed a 50% reduction of power consumption.

The new HX336 network processor is Xelerated’s contribution to the industry’s transition to 100GE and optical transport networks OTU4 standard. The transition may not be immediate, but as technologies matures, the shift may be stronger than expected.

by Per Lembre on Apr. 1st, 2011

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Do Your Homework – The “Four Ps”

Selecting packet processing technology for next generation line cards can be a complicated decision with many variables at play. In an article in the latest issue of EECatalog, I’m suggesting a guideline based on ‘four Ps’:

• Programmability. What level of flexibility is required?
• Processing. How many operations and table look-ups per packet? Is wirespeed performance critical?
• Power. What’s the power budget? Can the device bring the right performance per watt?
• Price. Level of integration (embedded memories, traffic management, etc.) has a huge impact on the bill-of-material, which ultimately defines the manufacturing cost and the margin for the target system.

Once coined by Jerome McCarthy and later made famous by Philip Kotler, the right marketing mix for a company can be modelled by another group of Ps: product, price, promotion and place. Kotler later added a couple of other Ps.  Is there anything missing in the ‘four P’ model for packet processing decision making?

by Per Lembre on Mar. 14th, 2011

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Why Programmability Matters in OAM

Defining OAM, Part 3 of 3. Please check out my earlier posts on defining OAM and OAM on NPUs – not only about CPU off-load.

As service providers take on new technologies, they spend a significant amount of time and resources adapting the new infrastructure to their method of operation. This means fine-tuning service provisioning, monitoring network status and having tools for consistent fault protection and mitigation. As with most things, standards is one thing, but what purchased products really can do is yet another. Designing the OAM functions therefore is as delicate as engineering the user plane for the right performance, features and availability. You need to analyze what functions you have, what you want to maintain, and what new capabilities you’d like to see across the complete network. Purchasing equipment that doesn’t meet requirements is as bad for OAM as it is for user data services. You end up compromising functions against performance and designing against the least significant denominator.

System vendors know this. Some have learned it the hard way when their products can’t support the required model of operations by some of they’re potential service provider customers. Others by owing the luxury of incumbency; once an operating system is ‘in-designed’ it becomes ‘approved’ by the service provider. This puts vendors with running contracts in a strategic position where they may advise new features that are planned for in their future releases of the OS, and are well supported by the underlying hardware. Competitors not in this position struggle to catch up and get their functions approved.

Here is why programmability matters for OAM. If the hardware is not flexible enough to develop a strong and agile OAM and service provisioning roadmap, the product will fail to concur with new market territory. Even aggressive pricing can’t compensate for a rigid hardware. Addressing the service provider requirements with a re-spin of the hardware is not very attractive either. An unproven vendor with an unproven line card is just too much uphill to win the deal.

It is rather common that network elements such as switches and transport systems are designed to perfectly meet a large incumbent carrier’s set of requirements. This customer may very well be significant enough to justify the design. But in a global market with global standards all systems have a larger market to address. But it can only be addressed with flexible OAM functions.

For a successful global expansion, Carrier Ethernet products need programmable OAM.

PS. Interested in how Xelerated technology can be used for OAM? You can find more information on the technology section on the Xelerated website.

by Per Lembre on Dec. 3rd, 2010

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It is Hot: 100G Wirespeed Processing

Some of you may have noted:  Xelerated is out on a roadshow. I’m just back from demo meetings in Asia and in the U.S. During our worldwide tour we have experienced a tremendous amount of positive customer responses, and as it seems, our timing to demonstrate wirespeed processing at 100G is impeccable. The long awaited possibility for our customers to realize their ever increasing demand for a higher rate of processing traffic is highly appreciated among all customers.

Per Lembre demonstrates 100G

Over four weeks, we are visiting 40 customers and partners to demonstrate our new technology.  Many of them have said this is the first time they have actually experienced a demonstration of wirespeed processing at 100G in a single chip.

Here are some of my reflections this far:

• 100G is hot. With the finalization of the 100GE and 40GE standards, there is a huge interest to scale packet processing to the next level. 100G wirespeed network processors that can match the new step in link capacity will be critical to the commercial success of 100GE.
• Greater port densities in next generation fiber access systems. Xelerated’s OLT and unified fiber access customers are pushing to get the next generation systems to market as soon as possible. Service providers, primarily in Asia, are driving the need for more bandwidth and customized features to fit local market conditions.
• Power reduction is critical. In several meetings, our customers indicated that the HX and AX technology can reduce the power consumption with more than 50% compared to a competitive solutions. This has implications for both the environment and the operational cost of running the networks. Reduction in power consumption also enables new types of designs that are more efficient and require a smaller footprint.
• Wirespeed by Design. We use this term as a tag line for the company.  Through these meetings, I now realize just how well it resonates with our customer base. The dataflow architecture enables wirespeed packet processing without degradation when all services are turned on. It simplifies engineering, and our customers gain time to market. In addition, they are assured the products will come out well in performance tests.

The demo tour marks an important milestone for many of our customer design projects. The huge increase in demand on Reference Design Kits and the intensive customer correspondence on technical requirements are two safe signs of what’s ahead of us. It will be a lot of work, and a lot of fun!

By the way, we invited Craig Matsumoto at Light Reading to see the world’s first 100G demo. It all went very well, as expected, however there was initial confusion about bitrates and packet rates for 100Gbps Ethernet wirespeed. Please refer to the comment section to the blog post for more details.

by Anders Ericsson on Aug. 24th, 2010

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Busy Times

Today marked a major milestone for Xelerated as we announced the availability of samples of the HX network processor. The chip is back from manufacturing, and it is running at full speed in the lab. Samples are also with customers at this point, and the whole company is going full steam ahead to support our customers in the design of next generation Carrier Ethernet switches and routers.

Over the next few months, we are planning a series of events to demonstrate the HX network processor’s wirespeed capabilities. Stay tuned for more news and information on 100 Gbit/s wirespeed network processing.

Update:  Some online links to the news coverage on this story -

• Light Reading: Xelerated Finally Gets 100G
• Embedded.com: NPUs – Xelerated samples 100 Gbit/s wirespeed network processor
• Broadband Properties Blog: 100 Gbps Wirespeed Network Processor From Xelerated
• SOC Central: Xelerated Samples 100-Gbps Wirespeed Network Processor
• Converge! Network Digest: Xelerated Samples 100 Gbps Network Processor

by Per Lembre on Jun. 30th, 2010

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