NFV: Will vRouters ever replace hardware routers?
When i started looking at NFV, i always imagined it being relegated to places in the network that would receive only teeny weeny amount of data traffic since the commodity hardware and software could only handle so much of traffic. I also naively believed that it would be deployed in networks where customers were not uber-sensitive to latency and delay (broadband customers, etc). So if somebody really wanted a loud bang for their buck they had to use specialized hardware to support the network function. You couldnt really use Intel x86-based servers running SW serving customers for whom QoS and QoE were critical and vital. The two examples that leap to my mind are (i) Evolved Packet Core (EPC) functions such as Mobility Management Entity (MME) and BNG environments where the users need to be authorized before they can expect to receive any meaningful services.
While i understood that servers were getting powerful and Intel was doing its bit with its Data Plane Development Kit (DPDK) architecture, it didnt occur to me till recently that we would be seeing servers handling traffic at 10G+ line rate. Vyatta, a Brocade company now, uses vRouters to implement real network functions. Vyatta started with its modest 5400 vRouter that could Continue reading
